Draconem Rising
by Amethystfairy1
Summary: Draconem Heart has taken the title of most powerful guild, now all they wish for is a quiet year of guild work in their castle home of the Woodsy. But trouble is on the horizon, Shadowlogia has returned, and is after the seven strongest teams of the Games to steal their power. Old Rivals return, revenge is still wanted, romance is attempting to bloom. Can Draconem triumph again?
1. Chaos on Heart Lake

**_Ok! How is everyone? Good? Did you miss me? Well if you did, than here you are, everyone, here is the second story in the Draconem Heart series, Draconem Rising! First up, IMPORTANT! If you are a new reader and have not read the first story to this series, Draconem Heart, than this story will make zero sense to you! Zip, nada, zilch. So click over to my profile and read the original, Draconem Heart, please! Thank you! So anyway, hope everyone is ready, please enjoy!_**

* * *

"CANNONBALL!"

"NATSU NO!"

Natsu sprinted and leapt off of the long wooden dock and hit the water with a mammoth splash. He sent a giant wave through nearby area in the lake at the back of the guild, it had been dubbed 'Heart Lake' by the youngest member of the guild. Kylie had named the lake, which had simply been referred to as 'The Lake' until she came along. She'd refused to rename it anything else, and just like the slogan 'Draconem's got the heart', the name stuck.

"KYA!" Misty wailed as her pool floaty was capsized and she was flipped into the water.

Sting was momentarily drowning before he regained his balance and started doggie paddling over with full intent on kicking Natsu into the middle of next Tuesday.

"What the heck!" Misty shrieked as she burst to the surface, her blue streaked light blue shoulder length hair sopping wet and dripping.

The members of the lost guild Draconem Heart were having a day off from training, and some chose to spend it out picnicking and swimming by the lake. Natsu laughed.

"Sorry Mist!" He called as he started swimming backwards.

"Get back here Dragneel you almost sent me to a watery grave!" Sting shouted. He'd only recently learned how to swim, and was still struggling with it. This meant that his top speed was a little over two miles an hour, and Natsu was doing the backstroke in front of him, easily avoiding the angry slayer.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask, you just learned to swim out of the blue, so where did you learn?" Onyx asked as he bobbed over. His brown-black hair plastered against his face so that it was nearly covering his eyes.

Sting turned red in an instant, his face feeling hot. For the one who'd taught him to swim had been Yukino when he'd run into her, more like landed on her, at the grand magic games water park.

"Umm...bye!" Sting turned and hightailed it from the water, as fast as he could go, when he was outstripped by a frizzy red head in a swim-skirt using water wings.

"Hiya, Sting!" Little Kylie sang as she swam by on her way to the dock, where he parents were calling for her to come get some sunscreen.

"Bye-ya Sting!" She laughed as she treaded the water easily with her tiny legs, sending a wave into Sting's face.

"HAHAHAHA! Your getting beaten by a little girl, Sting! Your pathetic!" Natsu laughed hysterically, kicking with his legs and pointing.

"Why you...WHITE DRAGON ROAR!"

"No!" Misty cried out as the laser of white magic shot across the water, sending out waves to either side in it's wake, and slammed into Natsu. The blast sent him flying through the water and sending out tidal waves to the right and left, which quickly grew into dangerous threats.

"H-HEY!" Orchid shrieked as she flailed around the water, her green hair whipping in the wind kicked up by the fight. She was being lifted up by the wave until Cobra braved the whirlpool caused by the two now having a roaring contest and seized her in his arms.

"Idiot! Be careful!" He scolded her as he surfed the wave on Misty's pool float, the back of which Misty was clinging too, and Onyx was clinging to her ankle.

"I-I-I'm s-s-sorry!" She wailed.

"Mind the super hearing!" Cobra moaned, his ears weren't gonna be lasting much longer if Orchid kept up the habit of hiding behind him.

"Oh, you wanna go for real!?" Natsu asked Sting after they had shot roars back and forth at each other.

"FIRE DRAGON IRON FIST!" The pink haired mage than yelled.

He flew through the water towards the poorly swimming mage.

He socked Sting across the face so hard he caused the water all around them to blast up into the air.

Up in the Draconem Heart clock tower, Master Dracoya was looked out the window and sighed, already having guessed what had happened.

"Oh, this ought to be an interesting start to the summer." She murmured as she picked up her red towel, already donning her own bikini in red and gold with her pale green hair up in a high messy bun. She walked out of the clock tower that served as both her office and home, with an apartment above, in the works of the clock.

Kylie screamed with glee as she rose up into the air on a wave of water.

"THIS IS AWESOME!" She cried out as she dropped back into the water with a small splash.

Only to have the space around her suddenly turn to planets and stars and float her up out of the water to her parents.

"Thanks Zahn!" KeKe, her mother, exclaimed to the space godslayer as he used his magic to pull Kylie from the water and into her red headed mothers arms.

"No problem, now, hope I don't die for me, will you?" The teen with black hair dusted gold asked, sounding less than enthusiastic as he dove into the water, clad in purple swim trunks.

Kayden, Kylie's father, sighed, "I swear, those boys are gonna kill someone."

"Nah, it's funny, Papa!" Kylie exclaimed happily.

Kayden chuckled, his black hair was in a pixie cut, covering half of his face and one eye, he used a form of lost take-over magic that allowed him to take the shape, form, and to an extent, powers, of mythical creatures.

That had lead to way to many a pony ride when Kylie had discovered he could use the form and limited healing abilities of a unicorn.

"I suppose it is kinda silly." He admitted as he watched Cobra lose control of the raft he, Orchid, Onyx and Misty were surfing through the fray on, and tumble into the water again with several curses and a loud splash.

Misty had snapped when her favorite pair of sunglasses slipped off of her head and sank into the depths.

"My glasses!" She shrieked, diving underwater and moving her arms around in a failed attempt to seize her glasses. But they were already long gone.

"Oh, that's it."

Misty was the water dragonslayer, completely in control over her element.

The guys she was mad at were both bobbing in it.

"WATER DRAGON WING ATTACK!" She shrieked, cracking her arms down.

Two giant whips of water blasted into Sting and Natsu.

"ARRGH!" Natsu backflipped and splashed into the water.

"Now Misty's in on it! IT'S A PARTY!"

Natsu punched the closest male to him, who happened to be Zahn.

"OW!" Zahn shouted as he was sent into a wild backflip.

"What the heck!? I didn't even hit anyone yet!" The space godslayer cried out in fury, flailing one arm in the air and rubbing his tanned cheek, which was aching from the blow, with the other.

"White Dragon Roar!" Sting aimed and fired at Natsu yet again, but the fire mage dodged and his dark haired guild mate took the hit.

When Zahn resurfaced after being blasted underwater by the laser of white magic energy, he wasn't very happy.

"Oh, screw it!" Zahn growled.

"Space god's bellow!" He shouted, a pillar of purple magic with stars and planets in it shot into Natsu, sending him hurtling from the water and landing hard on the sandy beach of the lake.

"Are you gonna do anything?" Sofie asked, she and Rogue stood on the dock watching the madness. Sofie had her slightly curly dark brown hair up in a high ponytail, and wore an electric blue athletic tankini, showing her green guild mark on her thigh. Rogue wore simple black swim trunk, he turned to her and shook his head.

"Than I'll just get dragged into it." He said softly as he watched Natsu dive into the water again to punch his blonde partner in the face with his fire.

Sofie had an evil grin on her face.

"THAT'S THE POINT!" She cried, seizing Rogue's wrist.

"Wait, SOFIE!" Rogue yelled as Sofie shrieked.

"COWABUNGA!"

Leaping into the water and dragging Rogue in behind her, the two of them hit the water with a violent splash.

Ultear suddenly appeared out of nowhere, bobbed straight up from, it seemed, the bottom of Heart Lake, and asked.

"So you two finally admit your a couple? You've been spending a whole lot more time together these past six months since the games. Sofie did save you when you almost overloaded, Rogue..."

The two of them turned as red as could be, and while Rogue just floated there with a blank look on his tomato of a face, Sofie splashed and yelled at Ultear until she disappeared yet again into the water.

"Well that was random." She commented when she caught her breath.

"Yeah..." Rogue agreed.

Sofie imminently attacked her friend Zahn to change the rather awkward mood.

"WHY ME!?" He yelled as he was struck by a lightning bolt in the rear end.

"Ok, fine! SPACE GOD'S FIST!" He dove up out of the water with a thrust from his legs and punched at Sofie, who disappeared into a lightning bolt.

"Boo!" She appeared behind him and cried out.

"LIGHTNING GOD'S BELLOW!"

"ACK!" Zahn was sent spinning into the water, slamming into it in a belly flop that drew a resounding 'oooooo' from everyone around him.

Natsu and Sting were swimming as if from the devil himself as they flew by, splashing a slowly sinking Zahn with their wake.

"Get back here you two! You ruined my day on the lake! Get back here so I can destroy you idiot's!" Misty screamed at them, her water whip arcing through the air above her as she swung it down, it crashed into the water and sent Sting and Natsu flying. The two of them flailed through the air to do a face plant in the sand on the beach.

"Owch." They both rolled over and groaned, now looking as though they had coated in bread crumbs and ready to be dropped into the frier. With the rage obvious on Misty's face, falling into a frier may have been a better option than staying to deal with the water wizard's wrath.

"This is all your fault, Natsu-san, now she'd gonna kill us!" Sting yelled as he jumped to his feet.

"No! It's your fault for being such a terrible swimmer!" Natsu shot back.

"What!? How does that have anything to do with anything!?" Sting asked in fury, a vein popping on his head.

The two were growling at each other and trading petty insults when someone cleared their throat behind them.

"Ahem."

They both turned to see Misty, riding with her waist down consumed in a whirling watery tornado of liquid.

"Would it help if we said we were sorry?"

Sting asked weakly, raising his finger a bit as Natsu smiled what he hoped was a winning grin.

"Not. At. All." The dangerous water mage spat each word.

Master Dracoya had just stepped off of the drawbridge to the beautiful castle, and was turning to go to the lake, humming softly to herself, just in time to hear.

"WATER DRAGON'S TSUNMI SLASH!"

There was a giant explosion of water and a lot of screaming as the water of Heart Lake rained down on the nearby ground. When everything settled, Sting and Natsu were both stuck with their heads in the sand, their exceeds yanking on their ankles to try and get them out. Zahn flew along through the air, easily manipulating gravity around himself, he'd been the only one to avoid the disaster.

Master Dracoya stood there and stared at the destruction of the once beautiful lake.

"Oh well..." She sighed, she could repair it later.

She turned on her heel and made for the courtyard.

"I'll go to the pool instead." She called over her shoulder.

Misty stood in the center of the now empty lake, save for a few small puddles, at least, hands on her hips, still glaring daggers at Sting and Natsu, the two idiots were, unfortunately, still buried in the sand.

Zahn rolled his eyes at the subsiding chaos as he flew back towards the castle in a backstroke fashion. Planning on a shower and a nap for the rest of his lazy day, saying out loud to no one in particular.

"Swimming is overrated anyway."

* * *

 ** _First chapter up! So, that was basically just a quick recap of the main OC's and cannon characters involved and their personalities, that was also a scene with the lake I've been wanting to do, so I decided it would be a good way to kick things off! Next chapter we will be beginning the arc! So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks for reading!_**


	2. The fateful job

**_So, time to start with the chapter that probably should have come first, but hey, who doesn't like lake madness? Or all out chaos! Anyway, hope you enjoy!_**

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At the Blue Pegasus guild hall

* * *

Ren, Eve, and Hibiki, otherwise known as the Trimen, headed up the walk towards there rather glittery guild hall.

"It's been six months and I can still feel those welts from that hailstorm Rina cast on me." Eve sighed to his friends as he rubbed his arm, he was wearing his usual cream colored tee shirt and striped tie, his messy blonde hair sticking up in several different spikes.

"Yeah, and Natsu took out most of our guild in one shot, that was embarrassing." Hibiki agreed as he recalled the grand magic games finale.

"You think that was embarrassing? Maybe you should ask Eve here whats embarrassing?" Ren suggested.

Eve elbowed him hard in the ribs.

"Ha ha, yeah, your still teasing me about stupid Viper putting words in my mouth." The youngest of the trio complained.

Hibiki smirked, "You serious about Rina?" He asked.

Eve shrugged, "At first I thought she liked me when she asked for me to team up with her in Ticket Dash Crash. Than it turned out that she only wanted me with her and Millianna in the first place because I was a snow mage and she could refuel using my magic. Than, I'm not sure if that was mean of her to use me, or if it was just a sort of bonus that I was a snow wizard and she would have asked me to join up with her even if I wasn't a snow mage. Course I'll never know that one. Than Viper went and confused the heck out of me, and at the grand ball she just found me annoying." Eve rambled without thinking.

Ren started laughing.

"Man, have you been thinking about this since the last time you saw her or what?" He choked out between his laughter.

Eve rolled his eyes, "Sure, and you didn't think about Sherry for a whole year after the Nirvana incident." He said bluntly.

Ren shrugged as his laughter died away, "I'll admit it. Yes, I thought about her all the time! And look where it got me!" Ren exclaimed, throwing his arms out.

"Trapped with crazy woman that loves love?" Hibiki tried.

"About to break your back trying to keep it up when your in separate guilds?" Eve attempted.

Ren scowled, "Engaged to the girl of my dreams, anyone?"

"Oh yeah...right, that too." Hibiki and Eve said in harmony.

Ren grumbled something about his two best friends being total idiots before he pushed the doors wide open.

"We're b...ack!" Ren choked on his words when he saw the scene before him. Ichiyia, Master Bob, and most of the other oddest males of Blue Pegasus were drunk as could be, some were crumpled on the floor, others leaning heavily on the walls, and some were full passed out on the floor. Ichiyia was sprawled across a table in his several sizes to small black speedo, Master Bob was rather red in the face and clutching a bottle, swaying from side to side with a strange look in his eye.

"Hic! H-Hellooo boys, w-why hic! Don't you c-come jooooooin us?" Master Bob asked.

All of the Trimen began edging for the door.

"Sorry..." Hibiki began.

"...but we have a..." Ren continued.

"..job!" Eve finished.

"Yes! A job, a very important job we need to go do right now!" Ren said whilst elbowing Hibiki hard in the side.

"J-Job...right! One that we've been planning for months!" Eve stuttered as Master Bob stumbled over to them.

Hibiki crouched down behind Eve and Ren and quickly typed a few things into his archives.

"What's the j-job fooooor?" Master Bob slurred.

"It's...ummm..." Eve was lost.

"To investigate a suspected spot for a dark guild! Yes, that's it!" Hibiki exclaimed as he jumped up and turned his archive screen, which was displaying the quest.

"Welllllll oookey doookey! Be hic! Careful!" Master Bob choked as Ichiyia rolled over and snored, still donning his less than appropriate swim wear.

"Ok! Have fun here! Without us! Bye!"

The three of them had hightailed it out of the guild before things could get any weirder.

They ran down the street to their apartment.

"That was very, very strange." Hibiki stated bluntly.

"Yup."

"Agreed."

All three of them shuddered as they attempted to forever banish that horrible scene from their heads.

They headed back to their apartment, picked up their backpacks, still packed and ready because they'd only just returned from their last job. They headed back to a train station, and, less than an hour after return to their home, they were back on a train chugging off to another job.

"Well, I guess we're doing a job, than." Eve sighed.

"Please tell me you _at least_ picked one that _actually_ has a good reward." Ren begged.

"Let me check." Hibiki pulled back up his archive screen and tapped at the key screen for a moment.

"Holy..." Hibiki was at a loss for words.

"What?" Eve asked as he and Ren leaned closer.

"Guys, the reward for this quest is almost 10 million jewel."

"Holy crap!" His companions exclaimed in unison.

"That's a lot of money, must be a tough one." Ren stated.

"What is it, exactly?" Eve questioned as Hibiki read from the screen.

"Apparently, a billionaire purchased a summer home in the West Woodsy, and had gone to visit one of the villages, Woodsy Village, to be exact. He'd found a thirty five year old map in an antiques shop and bought it. It said that there was an old castle ruin hidden somewhere in the forest. He'd been curious, so he'd researched it. But thirty years ago it was as if the ruin had just dropped off the face of the earth, no exploder could find it, they'd head into the forest and suddenly become so turned around and confused that they'd have to return empty handed."

"Can't say I blame'em, remember when we went into the West Woodsy? Almost eight years to the day and I'm still not sure where the heck we'd ended up! West end, south end, we could have been in the wrong forest for all I know! That entire place just hurt my brain." Ren grumbled, recalling when they'd gone into the West Woodsy during the allied guild's battle against Nirvana.

Eve nodded in agreement, than got back on the original topic.

"So did he question any of the villagers?" The snow mage asked.

Hibiki nodded as he scrolled through the information screen he'd pulled up with his magic.

"Yeah, he asked as many people as he could, and none of the villagers will say a word about it. Apparently they all believe the ruin is noting but an old village myth, even for a myth, they all seem very hesitant to talk about it. Some downright ignored him when he brought up the old castle. The man's curiosity was piqued, so he requested for a group of wizards to go investigate it. It says here that he's done some independent research and discovered an area of the Woodsy that had so much magical power concentrated into it that it was the equivalent of the raw power it takes to fire the Eitherion cannon."

"Whoa! That's a lot of juice, and it's all in one spot?" Ren demanded.

"Yes." Hibiki confirmed.

"Even more so, it looks like the area is surrounded by an amount of protective magic, shield spells, draining magic, ruins, they've got it all. But they were all so well concealed it took the man months to discover that they were even there! There's something back there that someone doesn't want the world to know about."

Ren frowned, "Sounds like a dark guild to me." He said.

Hibiki nodded again, "I think I can open up a small passage through the ruins and shield spell with my archive as a hacking mechanism. I can also use a small charm spell I picked up to temporarily make us immune to the draining magic trap. Even so, we'll have to be incredibly careful, I say we go in under the cover of night."

"Great, a freaking confusing forest that's made to turn you around in so many circles you won't know which direction your even facing, a dark guild, and best of all we're going in at night! Whee, sounds like a blast!" Ren sighed, twirling his finger in the air.

"Well aren't you just a little ray of sunshine." Hibiki shot at Ren, giving him a sharp look.

Eve blinked, "Ren's right, it certainly sounds like a doozy, how far is it?"

"Seven hours straight trip." Hibiki sighed, "So get comfy."

As Ren claimed an entire bench to take a nap and Hibiki started to research the Woodsy, Eve began to think about something Rina had said to him last he'd seen her.

 _She'd said that she didn't want me riding on a train for seven hours just to visit them. She also said that 'the drawbridge will stay up, figuratively speaking, of course.' We're searching for a castle that the world supposedly forgot, castles have drawbridges and it's seven hours away. Nah, there's no way though, Rina living in a castle, I can't believe I even imagined that!_

After that, Eve banished the thoughts from his head, and settled down for a long, long ride into the wilds of the West Woodsy.

* * *

 ** _I'm sure we all know by now what this 'dark guild' is. Is anybody else concerned for the Trimen's health? No? Oh well, bad for them._**

 ** _So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	3. Woodsy Village

**_Alright, chapter three, I'll keep going, the Trimen's have arrived in Woodsy Village, will they get anything out of the villagers?_**

* * *

"Finally made it!" Hibiki gasped as they all stumbled off of the train. They'd arrived in Woodsy Village, it was late afternoon, and time for some investigating.

"Interesting town, huh?" Eve pointed out, staring at the tree's coming out of the roofs of the buildings and the buildings literally built _into_ the trees.

"A wonderful place, it's like a hidden jewel." Hibiki said poetically.

Ren rolled his eyes, "I just hope this place has some grub!" He barked.

The kind citizen's, sort of like modern villagers, smiled and directed them in down the moss ridden streets to the villages only inn, but when they asked them about the castle, they simply tensed up, shook their heads, and walked quickly away.

 _I get the feeling that the entire town is hiding one big secret._

Hibiki thought as a grocer they questioned about the mysterious castle quickly went back to his tomato's after saying.

"That's just an old bedtime story my Granny'd tell me 'fore I'd go to sleep, course their ain't no castle in the Woodsy! Only thing you'll find back there is, well, wood!"

They arrived at the inn at last, which had an alarming large tree growing straight through the middle of it, and checked in. After they dropped their bags in the large two bed with a pullout room that they had rented, they headed back down and decided to speak with the hostess on the matter of the mysterious castle.

"Excuse me, Miss?" Eve called as they all came thundering back down the steps.

"Yes? How can I help you?" A shapely young woman with long light brown hair, wearing a form-fitting ethic patterned sundress and a large flower in her hair, came out from behind the hostess table to join them at the bottom of the stairs.

"I was wondering, we're wizards on a request to investigate the castle ruin nearby, could you point us in the right direction?" Hibiki asked politely. Normally, when faced with such a lovely young lady, they'd all instantly whip out their charms and, on occasion, their love seat couch. But today was for business, and Hibiki planned on keeping his teammates well in line.

The archive mage instantly noted how the woman seemed to tense slightly at the question.

 _Just like everyone else in the village when we asked._

Hibiki quickly filed this information away for later.

The woman fiddled with the flower in her hair before saying in a breezy voice.

"You mean the old castle myth? Yeah, that's the thing, every kid gets told the story of the wizarding prince fighting the monster and saving the princess at that same castle. When I was younger me and a few friends even went into the woods intent on finding it. We didn't get lost, heck, we're natives and we know these tree's like the backs of our hands, but we didn't find a thing. You guys are chasing an old village legend, alright?"

Ren wasn't sold, "Anyone else we could talk to that would know more about this 'myth'?"

She frowned and thought about it, "Well, my Mom and Pop run the tavern at the forests edge, they may have heard something more about it. Plus I know they know the myth because they told it to me as a kid. Anyway, good luck, and if you actually do find the castle, let me know, because I was looking for that thing first!" She called after the Trimen, who were already half way out the door.

They headed down the street to the forest's edge and found an amazing sight to behold. A tree, gnarled from age, with it's trunk worn and it's branches still thick and sprouting leaves, about forty feet by forty feet, they thing was massive. It had a door in the front, and when Hibiki, Eve and Ren walked in, they found a modern bar and restaurant.

"Cool!" Eve exclaimed excitedly, unconsciously straightening his tie as they walked in.

The walls were made up from the rind of the tree, several old relics, clocks, and shelves containing bottles of preserved fruit. Their were about twelve tables in the floor of the restaurant, towards the end their was a step-up to the bar. They walked up to the bar, which had ten stools, none of which were taken, it was an odd time on a slow day, so the place was empty. Save for a woman with curly light brown hair, wearing a simple black V-neck tee shirt and worn down old jeans, who stood behind the counter with her hair in a messy bun, currently cleaning. She quickly put her rag away as the three wizards entered.

"Welcome to Twisted Tree's Tavern! Why can I get you fellas, your new in town so I don't yet know your regulars." She said in an almost reckless sounding voice.

Hibiki deemed it to be most polite if they were to order something, and the trio was starving from the seven hour train ride anyway.

So they each ordered a large tavern burger apiece, and were digging in when the woman introduced herself.

"I'm Marisa, my husband is out at the moment, but he and I have been running this place for years now. So, you new in town, or just passing through?" She asked, leaning on the bar as Hibiki swallowed a large mouthful to reply.  
"First I'll say that this is one of the best burgers I've ever had."

The fine haired Blue Pegasus wizard started off with a complement, and he wasn't kidding, the burger was juicy and stuffed full of cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, and condiments.

"Well thank you!" She said, happy that they enjoyed her cooking.  
"See, we're mages from the Blue Pegasus guild. I'm Hibiki and these two are Eve and Ren." he said whilst jerking his head in his companions directions. The two were currently stuffing their faces and struggling to empty their mouths long enough to comment.

"We're here because your daughter told us you knew about the old castle in the forest, she told us it was a myth, a bedtime story."

Marisa nodded, "Yup, I'd tell Claire that story at least four nights a week and she never got tired off it, honestly it's pretty cliché. The evil monster traps the princess in her own castle, which is the castle in the woods, the brave prince comes dashing heroically in on his white steed, uses his incredible magic to blast the monster away, and saves the princess, and they live happily ever after. Of course when I told Claire I'd elaborate a bit more, but thats pretty much the story."

Hibiki looked confused, "So no one believe that the castle exists."

"Oh it exists all right." Marisa said as she took all three of their plates, they'd all inhaled their meals.

"R-Really!?" Eve choked on his final bite of food and Ren had to slap him on the back to get him to swallow.

"Breathe, than talk!" Ren ordered.

Eve gasped in several breaths and continued his statement.

"But everyone we ask has said it's a myth."

Marisa leaned on the bar again after putting the dishes in the sink. She bent her head closer to them as she said.

"Now you three listen to me and you listen good, you hear? I won't lie because I'm no lier, but you don't go anywhere near that place, got me? It'll only end in pain for all three of you." She said darkly.

All of them blinked, she seemed awful serious.

"Well, I'm afraid we've no choice, ma'am. We were given a job and we have to do it, no matter what."

The brunette sighed, "If you wanna go than I won't stop ya, but at your funeral, all I'll be saying is 'I warned them!'"

With that she thanked the boys for their business, and they headed back out onto the street.

"Well that was ominous." Ren commented randomly as they headed down the street.

"Yup." Hibiki agreed, than he turned to his teammates.

"But still, we're not giving up on this quest, we'll find that castle, we leave at nightfall."

* * *

 ** _All done for this round! The way I built Marisa's character, I figure she'd be the sort of 'I ain't no lier' type. So I used that as an excuse to give the Trimen incentive to head for the castle! The Trimen's aren't giving up, and we'll see how this goes soon enough! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks for reading!_**


	4. Discovery under the moon

**_Next chapter ready! The Trimen have begun their quest, and it's already spelling disaster!_**

* * *

Hibiki swung his light lacrima, styled like a torch but instead of a flame at the tip, there was fixed a glowing multicolored lacrima. Eve and Ren both carried ones as well, but for now, only one was necessary, and they'd figured they should save the energy in them for when it would be needed.

Eve was hugging himself, his lacrima secured at his belt as he looked around the dark woods, filled with the rustling of the leaves and vines and occasional call of a less than cheerful sounding bird. Hibiki had cast a charm on himself and his guild mates to make them temporarily immune to any draining spells, and he'd already had to stop their trek several times to dispel more than a couple rune traps and barriers.

"Am I the only one who's totally freaked out right now?" Eve asked worriedly as he jumped the noise of Ren stepping on a twig.

"Yes." Both of his teammates said in unison.

Eve pouted, "We are in the West Woodsy, it's dark, the moon is only a crescent so there's barely any light breaking through the trees, and my skin is practically crawling with all of these weird noises everywhere!"

"Or maybe it's the giant man-eating spider crawling up your back."

Ren said nonchalantly.

"KYA!" Eve jumped up and spun around several times, swatting at the fabric of his shirt in panic before he realized the Hibiki and Ren were laughing at him.

Eve smacked Ren hard in the back of the head in fury.

"What the heck you jerk!" He barked.

Ren wiped a tear from his eye.

"Oh, man, I never knew you were such a scaredy cat."

"Oh, shut up, I just don't like dark, creepy, weird noise filled woods! At night! Have any of you even _seen_ a horror movie lacrima? Three guys in the woods in the middle of the night, c'mon!" The snow mage exclaimed whilst flailing his arms around in anger.

"Oh, calm down, Eve, it's perfectly fine, we're all mages, we can protect ourselves if we need to, now let's focus on finding that barri-OW!"

Hibiki was cut off when he walked straight into an invisible barrier, Ren walked right into him, and the fact that he was already jumpy caused Eve to leap back out of the way.

Hibiki winced and rubbed his nose.

"Ok, found it." Ren said sarcastically.

Hibiki rolled his eyes and handed the light lacrima torch to him.

"Hold that up for me will ya?" He asked, Ren obeyed and lifted up the lacrima so Hibiki could see was he was doing. Eve edged closer to watch as Hibiki carefully back to work with the spell.

"Whoa. This is some high level defense magic. It's not black magic, which is was I was expecting, but it's gonna be tough to crack, give me a minute, alright?"

"Whatever." Ren sighed as Hibiki set to work.

He summoned up several different archive cards and attached a few small ones to the slope of the shield.

With these firmly in place, he began to incant under his breath and type.

* * *

Over an hour of typing and boredom later.

* * *

"DID IT!" Hibiki shouted out in victory as Ren jumped up from where he had been sitting on the ground.

"Really? About time!" The wind mage cried out, equally happy.

Eve stood as well and looked down, seeing four archive cards set in a square low to the ground.

"We're gonna have to crawl through one at a time, and it won't last long so hurry up!"

Hibiki exclaimed before dropping down onto his stomach and doing the sniper crawl through the square. Eve followed, standing on the opposite side and dusting the dirt off of his cream colored tee shirt as Ren pulled himself up. Eve glanced down just then.

"Check it out! A cobbled path!" He exclaimed, running down it a few yards and disappearing into the trees.

"Holy..." They heard his voice echo back. Ren and Hibiki sprinted down the cobble laid walk and came out of the trees to see it.

A giant twelve towered castle with intricate windows and a moat with the drawbridge up. It had flags on each of the towers and a large banner over the drawbridge. The gray brickwork was flecked with growing moss and some walls were covered in a thin layer of ivy.

"The castle really does exist." Ren murmured.

"It's beautiful. I can't believe it belongs to a dark guild." Eve said quietly.

All of them suddenly felt a pull, a tug of their magic reacting to others.

"Whoa." Hibiki said simply.

"This magic power...it's insane, this is like the grand magic games finale times two!" Ren exclaimed.

"Quick, turn that lacrima off, someone might see the light through a window." Hibiki ordered hurriedly.

"Right." Ren quickly shut off the lacrima, and they were depending solely on the light of the thin crescent moon.

They crept up the walk and under the arch, not bothering to take a good look at it, or at any of the banners or flags.

Eve frowned, a look of extreme discomfort crossing his face.

"Guys, I really don't feel anything dark about this place, maybe we shouldn't just break in." The snow mage suggested weakly.

Ren turned on him in a spurt of anger, "What? We've been trekking through this forest since the moon came out, it's freaking 1:00 in the morning and we finally made it in and your saying you wanna turn back!?"

Eve jumped at Ren's sudden change in mood.

"S-Sorry..." Eve sighed, resigning himself to silence on the matter.

Hibiki shook his head at the two of them, wondering what had caused Eve's sudden, very uncharacteristic statement.

They arrived at the moat and stared across at the thick wooden bridge that was barring their entry.

"Maybe we should try getting in from the back, perhaps there's less chance of being spotted back there?" The snow mage of the group suggested.

"Good idea." Hibiki said, nodded, thus they made there way around, gawked for a moment at the castles own personal lake, which had a suspiciously recently repaired looking dock. At last they arrived at the back wall of the mammoth stone structure, and Hibiki glanced around.  
"Trouble is that the wall of the castle is built directly out to the edge of the moat, looks like it's supported underwater somehow, theirs no landing on the opposite side and than getting in. So how do we get across?"

Ren shrugged, "We could just swim, I mean, I can air-dry our clothes later."

Eve blinked, "That'd be too easy." He said.

"C'mon, afraid of getting a little wet?" Ren teased his younger friend as he fearlessly jumped into the water.

"YEEEEOW!" He howled as he shot back out out, he'd been violently zapped by the electrified water.

Ren landed with a thud back on land, sopping wet and his hair frazzled out.

"Yup, I hate to see I told you so but..." Eve began.

Ren shot him the look of death.

"Don't you dare say it." He hissed as he began to dry himself with the wind of his magic.

Eve raised his hands in defeat, but when he thought Ren wasn't listening he said.

"But I told you so."

Ren put a hand firmly on Eve's shoulder, gave him a little half smile when the blonde glanced at him in confusion, than shoved him into the moat.

"YEEEEOW!"

Eve landed hard on the ground and groaned after getting a taste of the lightning magic that powered the moat waters for himself.

"Ok, point taken."

Hibiki sighed at the two of them bickering, finally Ren, a bit more angrily than necessary, blow-dried his snow shaping friend.

Hibiki turned.

"Hey, can't you just fly us over with your wind spheres?" He asked.

Ren slapped himself in the forehead.

"Why on earth didn't you think of that first?" He asked himself.

Hibiki and Eve watched Ren momentarily scolding himself before the dark skinned young wizard looked up and said.

"Yeah, I can."

They were soon surrounded by wind magic, it blew about their hair and plucked at their clothes, but as they approached the wall, they hit a repelling rune.

"NO NO NO!" Ren barked out as his wind sphere's failed and three of them went plummeting into the dangerous waters below.

"YEEEOW!"

The soaked trio, now sporting wild hairstyles as a result of their electric dip, dragged themselves up out of the moat and onto the opposite side yet again. Ren sat up with his legs crossed in front of himself, Eve pulled himself up to sit cross legged, and Hibiki stood up and his knees to say.

"Ok, new plan, Ren flies us up without touching the barrier, I hack the rune with a virus I've stores that'll only eat away one section of the runes, and we slide through."

"Can I get blow-dried again first?" Eve asked.

Hibiki nodded, "Yes. Ren?"

"At this rate I'm gonna run out of magic power just keeping us from catching colds in wet clothes." The black haired mage grumbled as he blasted the area's surrounding all three of them with wind. When the gusts cleared away they were all dry yet again, but with even wilder hair to match.

Eve reached up and smoothed his blonde locks down as Ren and Hibiki did the same to their own heads of hair.

"Ok, let's go."

Now that they had dealt with their fashion disaster, Ren enveloped them in wind magic once again, and lifted them up, careful to avoid the repelling barrier, but at the same time float Hibiki close enough to work his spell.

"Uploading now." Hibiki reported over his shoulder as an archive card appeared on the surface of the rippling green runes.

A few moments of hovering and watching later, Hibiki announced proudly.

"It worked! Ren, move me forward so I can get through."

Ren pushed his wind power, and as a result, the archive magic, forward and was surprised when Hibiki gripped the edge of the deactivated rune and heaved himself through, landing nimbly on the rampart below.

Eve was sent, more like thrown through next, and finally, Ren landed.

"Ok, were in the clear for now, so let's do some investigating to figure out what this old ruin is all about."

Thus the three Trimen of Blue Pegasus headed for the tower door, gimmicked it open, and moved into down into the heart of the castle.

It was unknown to the three mages that the heart of this 'ruin' was still strongly beating.

* * *

 ** _The end! So the trimen's broke in, how much farther will that get before something bad happens? We'll see! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks so much for reading!_**


	5. Dark guild, not so much

**_Ok, next chapter! So last time the three Trimen managed to break into what they think is an 'old castle ruin' in the West Woodsy, they suspect it is a dark guild, well, they aren't that far off the mark!_**

* * *

The Blue Pegasus wizards Ren, Hibiki, and Eve moved silently through the halls of the castle.

"Guys, this place is really well kept up, it's definitely a got some residents."

Hibiki pointed out, noted how even the thin dark wood table holding an intricate carving of a roaring dragon, both pieces made of solid wood, were polished to a shine in the dim light of the corridor.

"Weird, normally dark guilds aren't to worried about polishing their wooden furniture." Eve murmured as they passed by.

"Where should we go now?" The snow mage than chose to ask.

Hibiki furrowed his brow as he thought.

"Well, we need to find something to prove their existence. Something incriminating to prove that their a dark guild. If possible, we need to find the library, or where ever the files of this place would be stored."  
Ren straightened his jacket and than ran a hand through his jet black locks of hair.

"Not sure if it's gonna be that easy, we need to stay quite, and for all we know their could be a trap spell waiting just around the corner."

Eve shuddered, "And the magic power in this place is way scary. It's so powerful but...it's not dark, am I the only one who's feeling that?"

Hibiki nodded to his snow wielding comrade, "I feel it to, Eve. It's worrying me, but still, if they were a light guild, why would they be hiding in a castle in the middle of a forest known for it's mystery and monsters? Not to mention darkness, after that whole Nirvana incident." Hibiki stated in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Eve and Ren both nodded back to the archive mage, "That's true, but that doesn't stop me from worrying." The young blonde said, straightening his tie, the movement was only to do something with his restless hands.

Hibiki found himself beginning to worry about Eve. The snow mage had been acting up a lot lately, his fear in the woods, his sense of wrongness about them entering the castle. Perhaps Eve was sensing something that the present archive and wind mages had missed?

They weren't that much farther down the hall when suddenly, a looming shadow appeared at the end, growing up the wall as the person drew closer.

The trio froze in their tiptoeing footsteps, staring in horror at the giant dark figure on the wall.

"I-I-It's one of the dark guild w-wizards!" Eve choked out.

"We broke into his guild hall! If he catches us he'll kill us!" Hibiki hissed.

"Look at that shadow the thing can't be human!" Ren spoke out.

"Run!" Hibiki whisper-screamed.

Ren took off back down the hall they'd just come down, Hibiki took a door to their right, and Eve rocketed off down the corridor to their left.

A few moments later the shadow shrank down as the light behind him slipped down his frame, the figure turned the corner.

Happy rubbed his eye sleepily as he glanced around.

"Weird...I could'a sworn I heard someone talking down here." The exceed grumbled as he adjusted his green nightcap, his only pajama's.

"Oh well, guess I was wrong, while I'm up I may as well go the kitchen and get a snack...fish sounds nice." The tiny blue feline murmured, now rubbing his tummy as he spun on his heel, his green Draconem Heart mark visible, for he wasn't wearing a backpack, and went back the way he came, his little paws making soft padding sounds as they disappeared back down the hall.

* * *

In a nearby hallway, near the Dragon's Hangout.

* * *

Hibiki gasped for breath as he finally stopped in his frantic sprint.

The archive mage leaned heavily on his knees as his chest heaved to regain the air he'd lost in the run.

 _I-I...really need to work out._

The dark blonde mage thought as he panted.

When he finally caught his breath he moved forward and began to think of some sort of game plan.

 _Luckily Eve had the bright idea to make us all wear communication lacrima watches, since using my telepathy to patch us together gives off magic power and could make me an easy target, and make me easy to track if these mages are good enough. I don't get it, though, I've been extending my power every direction and yet I can't feel any negative magic power whatsoever. I feel so many energies, but not a single one is comprised of black power._

'Hundred Nights' Hibiki found a large double door bound with three sets of thick iron rings, moving quickly, he pulled up an archive screen and started searching for signs of life in the room within.

When his search turned up to show no one was inside, Hibiki carefully pushed one of the doors open, slipped inside, and shut the door lightly behind him.

He turned and craned his neck to see moonlight pouring in through several skylights and a row of windows to the back of the room.

 _This one room is as big as our entire guild hall..._

Hibiki thought in awe, the room was filled with tables and a bar, clearly used for serving food of massive portions to massive groups of people.

 _I never knew a dark guild could be so self sufficient._

Hibiki's mind whirred at a mile a minute as he allowed his eyes to slide from one end of the room to the other, taking in the stage and the bar barely visibly on the second floor from his current vantage at the front of the hangout, near the door. A flash of color caught his eye, and he snapped his head to the left to see a portrait of someone donning green's, gold's, and blue's. He moved closer, the portrait was next to the stairs to that lead to the second level, the Blue Pegasus man took one look at the picture and froze.

Blue hair fanned out behind her, wearing one of her ethnic blue and gold colored dresses, with a thick gold collar holding it up around her neck, her chocolate brown eyes wide, the sparkling in them amazing captured by the paint and ink, a smile lighting up her round young face.

"Wendy?" Hibiki was confused beyond belief as he stared at the portrait of Wendy Marvell, he'd worked with the girl before and knew without a doubt that it was her.

 _Why would they have a portrait of Wendy?_

Hibiki thought confusedly, turning the scan the other wall.

A portrait of a guy with brown hair dressed in earthy colors, onyx black eyes and a peace sign on his shirt, his figure in front of a backdrop of rock pillar's, giving a hint to his magic, hung opposite of Wendy's image. Next to it was one of a girl dressed in mellow golds and greens, with a large bow in her hair, she stood in front of a wall of vines and flowers, her very stance showing her timidness and soft-spoken personality. He looked up the stairs, and was surprised to see another person he recognized at the top of the stairs.

 _M-Meredy!?_

Hibiki stumbled back against one of the tables in the large hall, leaning on it for support as his mind struggled to take this all in.

 _Portraits of Wendy and Meredy. Dragon carvings and intense magic power. Incredible protection spells that even I barely managed to crack. Does that mean...is this...?_

He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes went wide and started shaking.

He stared up at the portrait of all the members of the guild, with the exceeds swooping above them, standing proud under the arc and looking happy within the castles shadow.

Hibiki raised his eyes to see the mark, of the dragon roaring up into the heavens, wings spread out wide. The mark spun of gold thread and the rest of the banner in green, with golden tassels hang down from the angled edged bottom.

Hibiki swallowed as he realized just what guild he'd broken into.

"D-Draconem Heart."

* * *

 ** _Honestly, it's kinda sad they didn't figure it out sooner. Well, how will things go for our hapless heroes now? We'll soon see! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks for reading everyone!_**


	6. Freezing and Fighting

**_Ok, new chapter, first thing, I'm not comfortable with explicit cursing, and since it's only for comedic effect, I figured it wouldn't hurt to use the symbols (Example. Why you &*^%!) see? Ok, nothing else I need to say here, so here we go!_**

* * *

Ren sprinted down the halls, he'd ended up in the upper halls of the castle, and was confused by all of the painted signs hanging across the doors, but honestly wasn't about to stop in order to read them.

If he had decided to give them a passing glance, he would have read.

 _Ultear's Room_

 _Layla's Room_

 _Wendy's Room_

 _Jacqueline's Room_

And many other name, dubbing each of the wizarding girls currently asleep within their respective rooms.

What the wind mage failed to notice was that Layla's door was open, just a crack.

He skidded on the black wooden floor and ran through the next doorway.

"ACK!"

He yelped as he slid across the now tiled soapy floor on his heel.

Flailing his arms wildly, the dark haired young man let out a curse and splashed into the girls bathhouse bathing pool.

"What the #$%!?" Ren demanded in fury as he burst to the surface.

It was a little bit to late that he realized something very, very disturbing.

He wasn't in the bath alone.

* * *

In the 6th floor hallway of the Draconem Heart castle

* * *

Eve walked through the hall, the windows providing enough light for him to get along without his flashlight lacrima.

As he moved he hugged the wall, careful not to rattle the signs there that he wasn't bothering to read, finally, he decided it was time to enter one of the many rooms he'd passed, so he pushed open one slightly, slipped inside, and eased the door shut. When he turned about, he flicked on the light lacrima because the room was shrouded in darkness by thick drapes over the window. The blonde moved silently into the room, and froze when his light cast over a bed, and the figure sleeping upon it.

"C-Crap..." Eve hissed, he'd ended up in one of the mages bedrooms!

The snow mage slowly began to back up, holding his breath as he scanned the sleeping figure. When his eyes reached her face, he really freaked out.

The bobbed icy blue hair, the dragon symbol in the same color clearly visible on her exposed neck, her pale skin and although closed, Eve knew very well those ocean blue eyes.

"R-Rina...?" Eve gulped hard, trying to force down the lump forming in his throat, if Rina was here than that meant that he had been right all along, this was no dark guild.

Eve's shaking hand dropped the torch lacrima, it landed with a barely audible 'thump' on the ground.

On the blue carpeted ground.

Eve realized, startled and horrified, this guild was far from dark, it was the most powerful light guild in the country, of six months ago at least.

"T-This...is Draconem Heart?"

Eve stiffened when Rina mumbled something and rolled over, and the snow mage began frantically looking for a place to hide.

 _Under the desk? No, I'd be seen the second she gets up and pulls the curtains, how about in the bathroom? There is no bathroom! Ok, ok, wardrobe, no if she opens it to get dressed and sees me in there I'll die a violent death, there only one option!_

Eve steeled himself, seized his torch from the ground, and dove beneath Rina's bed.

He cowered under there in fear as the wood above him creaked, Rina was moving to get up.

The trapped mage held his breath as a pair of bare feet set down onto the blue carpeting of the room, a soft sigh escaping her lips.

"So early...maybe I'll go for a walk to tire myself out." Rina murmured to herself as she shifted, the bed's wood yet again groaning slightly as she lifted up to bear her own weight.

Eve held his breath as he heard her fumble around for something, until he saw her pull a long white nightgown with blue ruffles and blue bows around the bottom out of the wardrobe and put it on. Eve saw the door begin to creak open, Rina was leaving in just a second, he just had to wait a second longer.

He shuddered when something tickled his arm, and turned his head to the side to see the biggest cockroach he could possibly imagine crawling up his arm.

"EEEEAAAAAGGGH!" Eve wailed, the thing was ginormous, he jumped up and slammed his head on the bed, causing the entire thing to jump a foot of the floor. The mage than threw himself out from under the piece of furniture, panting as the equally terrified roach scuttled to safety.

Eve heaved several breaths, trying to regain proper thinking abilities.

 _That thing was...Rina's right behind me isn't she._

He spun just as Rina shrieked at the appearance of a figure from under her bed and launched her magic without thought.

Effectively freezing Eve into a block of ice, with his head and one hand sticking out, in a position where it could just reach his face..

The ice godslayer had a hand to her heart, one hand out in front of herself, still steaming from the release of magic power, and took several deep breaths before looking into the ice to recognize Eve.

"Snowy..." She growled, her arms dropping to her sides and he hands balled into fists.

"Umm...hi." Eve tried weakly.

Rina scowled deeply at him.

"You. Were. Under. My. Bed." She said, emphasizing every word.

"W-Wait, I-I-I...!" Eve stuttered, flailing his free arm frantically.

Rina took one step forward punched him in the face, her blow knocked his lights out.

She watched as his head slumped forward onto the top of the glacier and she sighed.

"Guess I'll just push him to the dungeon." She mumbled, before walking around, throwing her weight into the ice, and beginning to slide it off into the hall.

* * *

Back in the bathhouse.

* * *

Ren plunged back beneath the surface and retreated a good distance away from the figure that was in the bath beside him.

He could see them glance from side to side in total confusion, but it appeared that they had been half asleep when Ren had flown in and were unaware of his presence.

 _Oh dear god..._

Ren thought in horror as, through the water that thankfully blurred his vision, he saw the figures shapely, definitely womanly curves.

To sum up, he'd fallen into the bathhouse of a dark guild, but not only a bathhouse, the girls bathhouse, and of course there was a girl taking a bath in it.

Above the surface, Layla sighed, stretching out her dark-skinned arms above her head.

"God, I must be sleepier than I thought, for a sec I actually thought someone flew into here and fell in the water."

She laughed at her supposed idiocy.

"Ah, well, I thought a late night soak would be calming to help me sleep, since I got back late from a job and all, but I still can't unwind."

She than slapped herself in the forehead,

"And now I'm talking to myself, I must be a nutcase!"

She laughed heartily again.

"Ah, well..."

Under the water Ren was running out of oxygen.

Finally, he could take it no more, an burst up, gasping for air.

Layla screamed loudly, her voice echoed down the halls.

"WHO ARE YOU!?" She demanded, leaping up from the water.

"Ah..."

Ren's eyes were wide as Layla glanced down.

"EEEEEE!" She shrieked so high that Ren covered his ears. The female mage dove to the edge of the bath, seizing a white fluffy towel and tying it tightly around herself.

"Ok, look, no need to go ballistic...I just..." Ren began.

Layla threw an arm forward.

"Trickster Magic: Boxer Blast!"

At her call, a red, happy face, sad face mask magic circle appeared and ten large boxing gloves on springs, the kind that would be in prank boxes, shot out. One socked Ren in the face, another hit him in the gut, yet another pummeled at his shoulder.

"Ok, you wanna fight? Ariel Phose!" Ren snapped his arms forward and a cyclone shot towards Layla.

"Trickster Magic!"

Layla clutched at the top of her towel to make sure it didn't slip as she leapt from water.

"Acrobatics: Enhance!" At once she performed a one-handed backwards handspring, dodging the blasts of wind shooting towards her.

"What?" Ren demanded, surprised by her sudden amazing athletic abilities.

"My magic allows be to take on acrobatic abilities, and control tricky objects, for example..."

Layla flung one arm out.

"Trickster Magic: Ring Toss!"

Twirling hula hoop sized rings spun out of the magic circle and into Layla's grasp, she hurled them one by one at her dripping wet foe.

"TAKE THIS!"

The ring slammed into Ren's chest, sending him stumbling backwards and knocking the wind out of him.

"Fine...let's go!"

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Dragons Hangout.

* * *

Hibiki stepped up to the second floor, a hand propped up on his other arm to hold his chin as he studied the many different chairs, tables, and stools surrounding the bar.

Behind the bar were four more portraits Hibiki figured were the S-class wizards.

 _Laxus, Sofie, Cobra, and Viper, why am I not surprised?_

The archive mage thought as he stepped back to look around the second floor.

As he'd also expected, there was a painting of Natsu surrounded by swirling flames, with a reckless grin on his face, next to him was a smirking Gajeel, and next to the two of them, just barely missing the mark of S-class, was Jellal, with glowing gold comets floating around his outstretched hand.

"Huh...glad I didn't run into any of them." Hibiki murmured to himself as he made his way back down the stairs.

 _I need to find Eve and Ren and get out of here, if we're caught, it could cause a guild war between Draconem Heart and Blue Pegasus, and for some reason I'm not so confident in our chances of beating these guys._

That was when the door to the hangout swung about and crack, Hibiki cursed under his breath as he stepped backwards, pulling up several attack cards, prepared for a fight.

Kylie stood in the doorway, wearing a pink nightgown and her frizzy red hair mussed around her head.

Hibiki blinked as Kylie asked.

"Who are you?"

 _Crap..._

* * *

 ** _The end! So, Eve's frozen, Ren in a fight, and Hibiki is about to face the all powerful Kylie! The...six year old with athletic magic. Well, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	7. Quite the interesting conversation

**_So, here we go again, let's see how Hibiki is doing with Kylie._**

* * *

"Who are you?" The little red head asked.

Hibiki gulped.

"U-Uh...I'm Hibiki, but..."

"Oh, hi Mr. Hibiki. I'm Kylie."

The girl than stifled a yawn, her eyes closing and he head tilting back slightly.

"I'd better go get my snack and go back to bed, I'll tell Mama and Papa your here so you can get a room too. Are you here to join the guild?"

Hibiki took at once to his charms in an attempt to keep the girl from giving him away to her parents, who were apparently guild members.

"No, but I am still an amazing wizard!" He pulled up a large, purposely overzealous archive screen.

"I can make a picture of anything appear, right out of thin air!" Kylie's mouth dropped open wide at the appearance of the glowing screen.

"I've never seen magic like that!" She cried.

"Anything you can think, I can make it appear!" The Pegasus wizard thought he'd gotten the the key to keeping Kylie busy.

"A bunny!" She exclaimed, running up stand next to Hibiki, who crouched down so she could see the screen well.

Hibiki's fingers flitted across the keyboard he'd summoned along with his screen, the buttons produced different noises and the screen flickered for a moment.

"Ta-da!"

Hibiki exclaimed for good effect as an image of a white rabbit appeared onscreen.

"Wow!" Kylie was awed.

"Oh! Oh! How about a rabbit?" She asked.

Hibiki blinked, than smiled down at her kindly.

"Sweetie, I'm afraid rabbits and bunnies are pretty much the same thing."

"Hmph." Kylie huffed, crossing her arms and pouted.

"Well...why not a hare?" She asked.

 _Does this girl have an obsession with bunnies or something?_

Hibiki thought miserably as he dutifully pulled up a hare onscreen.

"So cute!" The little girl squealed, her eyes glittering in the glow of the archive page.

"I know, can you do a turtle, Mr. Rabbit?"

 _Wait, whoa, when did I go from Mr. Hibiki to Mr. Rabbit?_

Hibiki thought confusedly, but he still pulled up a picture of a turtle for the little girl.

 _After all, if I let her go back to her parents, she'll tell them I'm here and we'll all be busted. I don't wanna know what they'll do to us if they find us, Draconem Heart is a light guild, technically we're breaking the law!_

As Kylie oohed and ahed at the photo of the turtle, she thought of another request.

"I know, now I want a tortoise Mr. Bunny! A tortoise!"

Hibiki wanted to smack his head against the nearest wall.

 _This is gonna be a looooong night._

* * *

Meanwhile, in the stairway leading down into the dungeons.

* * *

"FINALLY!" Rina panted as she leaned on her knees.

 _God, Snowy is heavier than he looks._

 _"_ W-What? What happened?"

Rina glanced up to see Eve was at last awake from her knocking him unconscious in her bedroom.

Rina felt an evil smirk spread across her face as she threw her back into the glacier she'd frozen the hapless snow mage into yet again.

"Wait!" Eve shouted, covering his eyes with his free hand, the rest of him still trapped in ice.

Rina stopped with Eve teetering on the edge of the staircase.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry ok! We didn't mean to break in!" Eve exclaimed.

"You didn't mean to break in and yet you were under my bed!"  
Rina barked at him, her eyes blazing and her blue hair bouncing with her movements when she whirled to face him.

"Look, look, just hear me out! Please!" Eve begged.

Rina crossed her arms and tapped her foot on the ground, glaring at him.

"Go." She ordered.

"So Hibiki and Ren and I all came back to our guild hall but our master and Sensei Ichiyia had drunk themselves stupid again and we didn't want to say with them so we grabbed a random job and bolted but than we found out it was for investigating a possible dark guild location we came here and questioned these village people and one of them gave us a hint I tried to convince the guys it was a bad idea to come here but they wouldn't listen to me and kept going into this big creepy forest and than we ended up at this castle and we flew into the moat twice and got shocked before we made it over the wall and we saw a dark figure in the hall and ran off and got separated and I randomly picked a room to hide in and it was your room and I dove under the bed hoping you wouldn't find me but than a cockroach crawled on me and I jumped out and you froze me and thats the end!"

Eve's head sagged as he gasped for breath, having blurted all of this out in a single sentence, he rested his chin against the cool surface of his icy restraints and looked hopefully at Rina, praying she'd understand and release him.

Rina raised her eyebrows at him.

"The flags." She said simply.

Eve blinked, "Pardon?"

"You didn't see the flags with our guild mark? The twelve flags on the twelve towers and the giant banner over the drawbridge that has the words 'Draconem Heart' woven onto it?" She asked.

Eve stuttered without really saying anything definite.

"What about the arc over the path that you guys had to have walked on that had our name in the metalwork?" Rina pressed, putting a finger against the ice imprisoning the snow mage, giving him another push until he teetered dangerously close to the edge of the darkening file of stairs into the dungeon.

Again, Eve was caught without a response.

"And what about when you were inside and saw the names of the girls on the rooms signs? The portraits of the guild members, you had have passed _at least_ one person you recognized."  
"Well...we, didn't read them or look at them." Eve gulped finally.

Rina narrowed her eyes at him and gave him one more tiny shove.

Eve felt himself tilt backwards as Rina gave him a three fingered wave.

"I'll meet you down there, Snowy." She sang.

Than Eve suffered a _very_ unpleasant trip down an unusually long, dark, stone flight of stairs.

* * *

Back in the bathhouse of the girls dorms

* * *

"Trickster Magic: Clawing Clowns!"

Layla shouted, summoning her magical jack in the box.

Ren felt recognition itching at the back of his mind, but pushed it away when a terrifying clown with enormous claws that ripped out of it's white gloves burst from the jack in the box and let out a devilish as it charged at Ren.

"ARRRRRGH!" He screamed loudly, the thing was terrifying.

Ren dove hastily out of the way behind a large dragon statue acting as the privacy screen through part of the bath if one wanted to bathe in solitude.

The wind mage sheltered behind the dragon as the clown exploded against it with another ominous cackle.

Ren winced as another clown smashed into the statue.

Then it clicked.

"Dammit, that's that girl who chased us at the Grand Ball...Layla...wait, this is...oh crap, Draconem..."

His eyes widened as his watch began to flash.

He hit the reply button and held the device to his mouth.

"WHAT THE %&*# DO YOU WANT HIBIKI!?"

In the Dragons Hangout, Hibiki had shown Kylie how to scroll through the photos herself so he could get to his watch and attempt to make contact with his friends.

"Ren, I need you to come help me!"

"I'm kinda...ARRRGH...busy!" Ren dove from behind the statue as it was shattered by another flying clown, and he was forced to lunge to the safety of the opposite dragon statue, all the while sloshing his way through the waist deep water, soaked to the skin.

"Where's Eve?" Hibiki hissed into his watch.

"I-I'm here..." A weak voice joined the conversation.

"Eve! You don't sound good, buddy, are you ok?" Hibiki asked, sounding worried.

"My pride is hurt worse than my body. That's bad considering I was just shoved down a really long flight of stairs and kicked into a dungeon cell." The snow mage groaned.

"You were caught, are you STUPID!?" Ren screamed as he dodged out to fire off a blast of wind at Layla, causing the girl, still wrapped in nothing but a fluffy white towel, to perform a handspring out of the way.

"N-No!" Eve stuttered miserably.

"Why not break out of the cell? You've got magic, right?" Hibiki asked, glancing over at Kylie to make sure she was still entertained.

Down in his dungeon cell, with nothing but a small barred window letting in a few slits of pale moonlight, Eve frowned as he glanced down at the slowly melting ice, his other arm was almost free, but his legs we completely numb and if he were to launch an attack now it would do him no good.

"Well...I'm kinda stuck." He said slowly.

"STUCK!? YOU DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD!" Ren barked harshly as he shot through the water with a burst of wind to dodge another clown, his two fellows on the watch ignoring the steady stream of curses that followed the loud amount of splashing and yelling.

"Well, I'm...frozen into an iceberg."

Hibiki snorted and Ren sounded like he was going to explode with fury.

"YOU #$% GOT FROZEN!? ARE YOU #$%ING TRYING TO GET US KILLED!?"

Eve winced at the harsh treatment he was getting, it wasn't like he had _tried_ to get himself captured.

"And guys, I think I've figured something out." The blonde mage said next.

"Yeah?" Hibiki questioned.

"What!?" Ren yelled.

"This is Draconem Heart." Eve stated seriously.

Hibiki sighed in disappointment and Ren screamed.

"NO DUH SHERLOCK!"

"Honestly Eve, we all figured that out and now you've gotten yourself frozen. Even though your a snow mage..." Hibiki left it at that.

"Oh, and how have you been doing this fine evening Mr. Lates?" Eve demanded.

Hibiki glanced over at Kylie, he face alight with joy as she studied a picture of a bunny/rabbit/hare.

"Well...I'm...getting called Mr. Bunny/Rabbit and entertaining a little girl."

Ren was pissed.

"You two idiots! I'm up here in the #$% ladies bathhouse fighting for my life and you guys are dancing with little girls and getting frozen!? SERIOUSLY!? AM I THE ONLY CAPABLE ONE ON THIS TEAM?" The dark haired wizard roared into the device.

"Well we haven't danced any but..." Hibiki began his reply when he heard.

"Hey Mr. Hare!"

"Gotta go, sorry!"

"Hibiki no!"

"HIBIKI WAIT YOU..."

The archive mage cut the connection before Ren's expected profanity could burst through, and turned to the fiery haired girl.

"What is it, sweetheart?" He asked, kneeling down to her level and already preparing to summon another archive screen.

She pointed at the watch on his wrist.

"That thingy, what is it?" She demanded.

"Oh, this is an advanced communications lacrima built into a specially prepared metal alloy wrist unit that allows me to confer vocal messages between myself and my comrades."

Hibiki said, gesturing to his equipment.

Kylie blinked.

"Huh?"

"I can talk to my friends with it." Hibiki decided to dumb it down a bit.

Understanding dawned in the little dragon's eyes.

"Ooh, so that was your friend yelling."

Hibiki gave her a closed eyed smile and nodded, doing his best to play his sparkling charm side.

"That's right."

"Well if it was your friend than you must know, so I'll ask you."

"Ask me anything, little one."

"What does #$% mean?"

* * *

 ** _I made Ren curse solely to be able to use that joke. There was no other real reason, but I hope you found it funny! Pretty soon we'll be getting a bit more serious, a few more chapters of the bumbling Pegasus trio we all love so much and than, boom, action! So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks for reading!_**


	8. The trouble a book can cause

**_So to recap, Eve's in the dungeon's, Ren's in the girls bathhouse, and Hibiki is stuck with Kylie. Let's see how they're doing now..._**

* * *

Hibiki glanced down at Kylie to see she was yawning, struggling to hide it.

An idea hatched in the archive mage's brain.

"You know, Kylie, it's real late, I think you should go to bed now."  
Kylie shook her head stubbornly.

"B-But I'm not t-t-t-t..." She was cut off by another wide yawn.

Hibiki smiled kindly at her, she was, quite frankly, adorable.

"Tell you what, if you go to bed and don't tell your parents I was here, I'll give you this."  
Hibiki pulled his lacrima torch from his belt.

"What is it?" Kylie asked as she took the large device, fiddling with it for a moment.

"You can push this, and..." Hibiki reached over and hit the switch, activating the torch.

At once, the two of them were bathed in multi-colored light.

"Pretty!" Kylie sang, a glow in her eyes as she stared into the glittering orb.

"It runs on lacrima battery, so if the battery dies, just ask your parents to buy you a new one and it'll work again. Ok?"

"Ok!"

Kylie than threw her small arms around Hibiki's neck.

"Nighty, night, Mr. Rabbit!" She exclaimed.

Hibiki was surprised for a moment, before returning the little girls hug.

"Ok, sleep well." He said.

"Kay! Bye bye!" Kylie than skipped off down the hall, switching the lacrima on and off, watching the light flash and giggling.

Hibiki stood up and put a hand on his hip, sighing with a bemused sort of smile on his face.

He then straightened his shirt with another sigh and took off into the hall, heading the opposite direction as his small new friend, unsure of what to do next.

After several minutes of dodging through the halls, studying the pictures on the walls and trying to find his way to his teammates, he saw something that made him freeze.

Behind a large set of double doors, carved with a dragon on either side, and a thick iron ring for a door knob on each end, he caught a flash of bound spins of paper.

He stepped through the doors, and swore that he'd just died and gone to any bookworms heaven.

The library took up four whole stories, huge floor to ceiling bookcases made up the walls on all sides, the ground was carpeted with thick red, several sturdy wooden tables were spread at even intervals across the space.

The amazing thing was that the four story book cases were not covered with ladders or stairs to reach the higher books.

Hibiki walked slowly inside, turning round and round in awe.

All around him were groups of comfy armchairs and plushy couches in red velvet and gold, with claw footed designs of deep dark wood.

Beneath each piece of furniture was spread a simple red rug with gold tassels.

 _Weird..._

Hibiki thought, curious, as he deeper wandered into the behemoth room.

 _Why are there rugs under the chairs and couches when the floor is already carpeted._

He turned again and gaped at what he saw.

One of the couches was floating, suspended by magic, halfway between the ceiling and the floor.

 _The carpet beneath it is some sort of levitating mechanism!_

Hibiki thought, astonished.

The rug was dropping though, and Hibiki had already turned to one of the shelves, wanted to take a quick peek at the books a lost guild like Draconem Heart may have in stock.

The rug had landed with it's couch, but Hibiki didn't turn around, he was already totally engrossed in a book he'd pulled from the shelf.

That was when he heard a loud snorting noise.

"YAGGH!" He wailed, spinning and chucking the book in his hand at the strange noise.

"OW!"

Hibiki gulped when he heard a female voice echo through the room.

He stared at the figure now rubbing it's head as it sat up on the couch.

Apparently, she'd fallen asleep up in the air on her couch while reading, and when she'd snored, she'd been struck by book.

Hibiki stared at the head of frazzled pink hair, fair eyes, eyes glinting with fury, wearing a tight button up blue pajama shirt with little hearts on it, and matching pants.

She leapt to her feet, donning blue bootie slippers, and turned on the offender who'd hit her in the face with a book.

Hibiki was gone, he ran for his life down the hallway.

Meredy chased after him, shrieking.

"I'LL MURDER YOU THIS TIME STING!"  
 _She thinks I'm one of her guild mates! Help!_

To late, Meredy, with a herculean throw, managed to chuck her book into Hibiki's back, the giant 1,000 plus paged epic knocked the dark blonde haired wizard to the ground.

"Take that you idiot lamppost!" Meredy cried triumphantly, than she let out a yell.

"Y-You!"

Hibiki rolled over just in time to see the point of Meredy's summoned sword at his neck.

"Why. Are. You. Here?" The girl demanded, her hair slipping down her shoulders.

"P-Please, Meredy, you remember me f-from the games, r-right?"

Hibiki stuttered.

"Sure I do. Hibiki Lates. Member of the trimen. Blue Pegasus archive mage. Key words, _Blue Pegasus mage._ You shouldn't be here, this is our guild, Draconem Heart, right now your trespassing on property _no one_ but a guild member has ever touched in 30 years."  
Meredy growled dangerously.

"I-I-I..."  
"Get up." She ordered, seizing the front of his shirt and dragging him to his feet.

Hibiki stumbled to keep his balance.

"Where are we going?" He demanded as Meredy's sword in his back caused him to begin moving forward.

Meredy gave him a little half smile.

"We'll talk this over with my superior, of course. Personally I don't think you'll give us away, although you hitting me in the face with a book doesn't do you to good for me vouching for you. But it's not my choice."

Hibiki already knew the answer, but that little flicker of 'what if' caused him to ask.

"Who's choice is it?"

Meredy tilted her head, her wild mane of bubble gum pink hair making her look rather crazy.

"Why, Master Dracoya's, of course."

* * *

Meredy rapped on the door to the clock tower that served as her Master's office and home.

The pink haired mage heard the door to the apartment above the office creak on it's hinges and the sound of soft footsteps coming down the stairs.

The door opened to reveal Master Dracoya, a scowl on her face.

Her green hair was in a hastily done ponytail, she wore a tightly tied red bathrobe with red slippers.

Her green eyes flashed with annoyance, she looked absolutely pissed.

"It's very late, Meredy, what's wrong?" She asked shortly.  
" _This_ guy..."

Meredy began, prodding Hibiki in the back with the flat of her sword.

"...is from Blue Pegasus, he broke in, was looking through the castle, hit me in the face with a book, and I captured him before he could escape."

Master Dracoya looked at Hibiki, and under her gaze Hibiki felt like he was going to spontaneously combust and explode into dust.

The dangerous Heavenly Dragonslayer snarled, and Hibiki was afraid he'd accidentally awakened her dragon force _by_ awakening her.

Now, the woman had to deal with quite a lot in the daytime, just yesterday she'd had to repair the entire lake with the help of several of her water and earth wizards, rebuild the dock, and send Misty, Sting, and Natsu to remedial classes, which she'd than had to teach. After that Kylie had run up reminding her of how she'd promised to let Kylie train in the courtyard. She'd had to monitor that, watching Kylie doing super speed laps around and around the field, dodging small, harmless targets. After that Sting and Natsu had broken into another fist fight at dinner, prompting her to ship the two of them off to yet another class to teach them a lesson about using their magic in a dining hall brawl.

All in all, another usual, run of the mill, completely exhausting day for the guild master of Draconem Heart. All she needed was a good nine hours of sleep and she'd be ready to do that all again, but now, someone, someone _stupid_ , was waking her up during her much needed sleep.

And nothing was worse than a pissed off sleep deprived dragonslayer.

Master Dracoya glanced over Hibiki once, than said.

"Take him to the dungeon."

As Hibiki sputtered in panic, Dracoya yawned, her hand running through her tangled mess of pale green hair, and grumbled.

"I'll settle it all in the morning."  
The door slammed in the poor archive mages face and Meredy shrugged.

"Well ok then."

Hibiki got to see Eve again a whole lot sooner than he'd expected.

 ** _Well, there you go, Hibiki and Eve are down, Ren is the only one who remains, will he rescue his comrades? Will he survive the terrors of the girls bathhouse? Will he teach Kylie some new vocabulary words along the way? We'll see! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	9. Awaken the Dragons

**_Ok, Ren is the last Trimen standing, let's go!_**

* * *

"ACK!"

Ren crashed out the doors of the girls bathhouse, sopping wet, covered in bubbles and soap suds, and feeling the ache from the clowns that had slammed into him.

"WHERE'D YOU GO, YOU JERK!? GET BACK HERE AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN!"

Ren sprung up and ran for it, down the hall as fast as he could go, he ran as quickly as his feet could carry him, using his wind to dry himself off to avoid leaving a liquid trail.

The wind mage darted around a corner and pressed himself back against the wall, gasping heavily for breath.

 _I ran all the way down the spiral stairs in that tower, no way she got after me in time to chase me._

Ren thought as his chest heaved beneath the stylish clothing that now looked rather bedraggled.

After he'd caught his breath, he pushed off of the wall, deciding to keep moving, and headed down the hallway.

He passed by several different rooms, finally, he found one that was deserted.

He entered the room slowly, shutting the door silently behind him with a small creak.

"What in the the..." Ren muttered as he looked around in bewilderment.

He stood in a room painted a mellow gold, with black wood flooring and a window draped by tasseled curtains to the opposite wall. There were three rows of five desks, a larger desk at the front, with several chalkboard covered with strange magical equations, sketches of casting positions, and comparisons of different magical abilities.

"It's like some sort of Magic 101 classroom." Ren said to himself as he entered to study one of the chalkboards.

He blinked at the sketch of a casting pose that would supposedly increase the strength of a single thrust by whatever strange symbols that were drawn at it's side.

"Huh..." Ren mumbled, than he turned and copied the pose, arms out in front, body sharply leaning forward, head angled down. Feeling a little ridiculous, he launched a gentle blast of wind.

That single blast sent the desk in front of him crashing backwards into the one behind it before crumpling over sideways.

"Wow." He murmured, normally a blast of that size would only lift the desk up slightly, but this pose apparently caused his magic power to flow differently, more smoothly.

Ren turned back to studying the chalkboard.

 _The Draconem's have figured out how magic power flows through the body, and they study different casting stances to see if that can somehow cause the energy to flow faster._

Ren's eyes widened as he recalled watching the members fight in the Grand Magic Games.

 _When Natsu did a wing attack, he snapped his whole body, when before he only did his arms. When that girl Orchid roared, she swung her whole torso about face before firing. Even those guys Sting and Rogue were moving differently, as if they were using the momentum of their attacks to send more magic energy coursing through their systems!_

Ren was amazed, the way all of the dragons fought so fluidly, seeming to drift from one attack to the next without wasting so much as a single flick of the wrist.

 _Incredible. They must not have been properly trained to do it all the time. In the heat of battle they started muscling their way through instead of flowing with their energy. This is an amazing discovery. I have to..._

Ren raised his lacrima watch, intent on snapping a picture of the board to take home when he heard something behind him, the gentle creak of the door opening.

"So...I _did_ hear something. Here I was thinking I woke Cubulous for nothing."

Ren turned around slowly, and when he looked at the door he saw, in all his only-wearing-a-pair-of-plaid-pajama-pants glory.

Cobra.

"Crap..." Ren hissed, stepping backwards.

"This is our work. We've studied for years to figure it out. You ain't taking it from us, your gonna take off that watch, drop it, and back up, got it?"

Ren gulped, could he take Cobra?

Cobra raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Or you could try your luck against me. I'll show you our technique at work."

Cobra swung one arm across his body, snapping it as if he were causing something on his arm to slide forward.

"Poison Dragon's Scales!" He barked his spell call.

A magic circle exploded from his hand and out shot five shaped poisonous scales of magic power. Ren threw his arms up and created a barrier of air, but nope, they all slammed through it and into him, smashing into his chest and winding him. Realizing he had no chance if he stayed, he abandoned his attempt at the work on the board and dove for the window in the back of the room he'd noticed upon his entry.

He ripped up the pane as Cobra pointed and Cubulous obeyed, shooting towards Ren, wings spread and fangs bared

But it was to late, the mage had already jumped out of the window.

Cobra ran up to the edge of the window and stared out of it, seeing nothing but darkness in the courtyard, a frown on his face as Cubulous returned to his bare shoulders.

"Better call the Master and order a castle wide wake up call. We've got unwanted company at Draconem Castle." Cobra told the snake, which once again disappeared from his shoulders and into the night, towards the clock tower.

Ren hovered just beneath the window pane, using his power to press himself flat against the wall, holding his breath.

He heard Cobra shut the door to the class room and lock it on his way out.

Only after locking the window pane.

"Crap." Ren groaned again as he slowly dropped himself down into the courtyard.

He sprinted stealthily across and made for the opposite wall, hoping to find refuge within it.

* * *

In the boys dorms of the Draconem Heart castle

* * *

"Wake up!" Cobra barked as he kicked open a door, the door slamming into the wall inside the bedroom and causing the inhabitant of said room to awaken with a yelp of surprise.

"Wake up!" Cobra repeated the action, this time having to enter the room and drag Sting out in his boxers as Rogue exited his room wearing a pair of black pajama pants, rubbing his head of tangled black hair and stifling a yawn.

"Wake up!" Cobra entered Natsu's room and dragged the dragonslayer out by his scarf, still snoring.

"Geez, how many times to do I have to say WAKE UP!" Cobra screamed into Natsu's ear.

"I'M SORRY ERZA I DIDN'T MEAN TO EAT YOUR CAKE PLEASE DON'T MURDER ME!" Natsu wailed, limbs flailing.

Cobra sighed, "Didn't you beat her already? Whatever. Just get up."

"What's going on?" Onyx mumbled his question as he stumbled out of his room opposite Natsu's.

"We've got an intruder." Cobra growled.

"WHAT!?" All of the gathered guys exclaimed in panic as Laxus exited his room, more and more of the members joining the group gathering out in the hall.

"Is this a pajama party or something?" Zahn grumbled as he exited his own dorm.

"You heard me. That Pegasus guy, the tall one with the wind magic." Cobra continued, pretending he hadn't heard the space godslayer

"Pen?" Natsu asked cluelessly.

Onyx facepalmed and Gajeel slapped Natsu upside the head.

"Idiot! A pen is something you write with!" Gajeel yelled.

"And his name was Ren...at least you were kinda close." Onyx sighed.

"Well, let's go get him for breaking in!" Natsu shouted, jumping up from where he'd been sitting on the floor.

"Right!"

* * *

In the girls dorms of the Draconem Heart castle

* * *

"GET UP GET UP GET UP!" Layla howled as she kicked down ever door she passed in the hallway, still clinging tightly to the towel wrapped around her.

"What...?" Misty sounded sleep drunk as she waddled out of her room, which had had it's door flung open by the furious Trickster Mage.

"I'm gonna murder that windbag!" She screamed, her voice echoing down the hall as Wendy shuffled from her room, rubbing her eyes, wearing a silky blue nightgown with a pink heart on it and hugging her pillow.

"Whats going on?" She asked tiredly as Charles hovered out behind her.

"Someone broke in, Wendy!" Layla exclaimed.

"What!? B-B-But, our protective spells are supposed to keep everyone out!"

"H-Huh?" Orchid whimpered as she inched out of her bedroom, wearing a pair of cotton candy pink shorts and a matching pink half top.

"Yeah. It wasn't just one. It was all of the Trimen." Rina growled as she stepped into the hall, still barefoot and donning her nightgown.

"I just caught Eve and dragged him down to my dungeon. Not long after that Meredy showed up and tossed Hibiki in as well."

"So only Ren is still on the loose, than?" Ultear asked as she stepped out in a tank top and shorts.

Layla nodded as she dragged a thigh length nightgown on, it was in bright colors, violently attacking the eye with stripes of green, red and blue.

"We having a slumber party? Sweet, I'll get the popcorn!" Sofie joked as she appeared in a bolt of lightning next to them wearing a pair of neon ble boy shorts and a tight fit blue half top.

"Yeah. He's out in the castle somewhere. And we've got our fair share of secrets, we can't have him stumbling onto something important." Ultear pointed out.

"Well than it's settled."

Layla turned and stalked off down the hall, followed by the other deeply angered Draconem Heart mages.

"C'mon. Someones broken into our home, disturbed our peace and broken the law that no one but a lost mage or one of greatest trust may set foot in Draconem Castle, and it won't be pretty when we find them."

* * *

 ** _Layla's pissed! Natsu's confused! Everyone's sleep deprived! Thats it for now! Ren's got some anger mages on his tail, the the secret technique of the Draconem's is at risk! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	10. That ended better than we expected

**_Well, Ren is on a mission impossible type quest to free his friends while dodges the members of an angry and sleep deprived Draconem Heart guild! Good luck Ren! (I doubt it'll help you any)_**

* * *

Ren's arms pumped at a steady rhythm, his breaths coming in short pants as he ran around the corner. This entire place was a maze of stone hallways and gothic arches, black wood floors and dragon tapestries.

He finally discovered a small deserted drawing room, with several plushy armchairs in deep red velvet and golden accents. Polished wooden furnishings filled the rest of the space, and several portraits, including ones of a few members together, decorated the walls.

Ren studied an image of the three godslayers, Sofie was sitting on Zahn's shoulders, legs criss crossed around his neck and a grin on her face as she flung her hands into the air. Rina was to Zahn's left, grabbing onto his arm and pulling on him, the unfortunate young man was tilting under Sofie's weight and Rina's tugging, a surprised look on his face as the portrait was done with incredible speed to capture the moment. They stood on one of the turrets, outside atop the high stone walls where it felt as though nothing could hurt you.

 _We've ruined that feeling, this place was a refuge, the members thought that as long as the resided within these walls, they'd be safe. We've broken that by bumbling in, and they intend to make us pay for it._

Ren thought as he collapsed into one of the armchairs, reaching for his lacrima communication watch.

"Hey, Hibiki? Can you hear me?"

"Ren? Ren finally! Are you ok?" Hibiki's voice came crackling back through the speaker.

"I'm cool for now, but I've got half the castle on my tail and they are _not_ happy." Ren grumbled as he teased at his hair with his fingers, pushing it back, than pulling it into his face again and blowing at it with a drawn out sigh.

"I've been running for what feels like ages, where in Fiore are you?" The wind mage demanded, he wanted to find his friends and get out, and pray that the Draconem's would let this incident slide.

Unlikely, but a far better option than sticking around the castle.

"We're in the dungeons, I'm with Eve and..."

Hibiki paused to, Ren assumed, glance at something and sighed, Ren groaned, his head lolling back onto the chair.

"Is he seriously in an iceberg?"

"I'm chipping it away with my archive cards as fast as I can. It's slow going. Here, I'll upload my memory of the way to us to you, and than you can come bust us loose." Hibiki said wisely, Ren felt the familiar buzzing in his head, and blinked when he suddenly knew which way to run.

"Got it." Ren said.

"You come get us. _Fast_." Hibiki repeated.

"Yeah, and than?" Ren asked.

"Than we run like heck."

"Good plan."

The wind mage deactivated his watch, stood, and made his way quietly out into the hall, it appeared that he was alone for the moment.

"ROCK DRAGON ROAR!"

"CRAP!"

Or maybe not.

* * *

Down in the dungeons

* * *

"Hey Hibiki?" Eve's voice sounded jarring and loud in the eerie silence of the cell. They were in a stone room of about seven feet by seven feet. A barred door separated them from the hallway, in which the entrances to several other prisons were accessible. The cell itself had a small slit of a window, which was barred, not as if anyone could escape through the narrow portal anyway.

"What?" The archive mage asked irritably as he waves his arm back, drawing the card back with it, and threw it forward again, chipping away another sliver of ice.

"My legs are numb, will you please hurry?"

The younger blonde was still frozen up to his waist in ice, his arms and upper body were free, but his friend was struggling to make further progress.

"I swear if you ask me the hurry up one more time I will leave you here to deal with your pissed off girlfriend." Hibiki growled, he wasn't exactly in a jubilant mood after getting pegged square between the shoulder blades with a giant book and than forced into a dungeon at sword point.

"H-Hey! She is not my girlfriend!"

"Shut up and accept it, you like her." Hibiki said, a tinge of sarcastic humor in his voice.

"W-Well...I _do_ , but she obviously doesn't like me, she froze into a block of ice and shoved me down a flight of unusually long stairs!" The snow mage pointed out miserably.

"Have you ever heard of how girls always beat up the guys they really like?"

Hibiki asked, glancing up at his friend as he slammed his archive card down again, this time taking a larger chunk of ice away.

"Really?" Eve asked skeptically.

Hibiki sighed dramatically, "I thought Sensei Ichiyia and myself taught you better than this, for shame."

Eve set his mind to thinking about that statement for the next few minutes, until, at long last.

"Ha ha!" Hibiki let out a triumphant cry as his card spilt the remaining ice imprisoning Eve into tiny crystals, freeing his younger friend.

"Yes!" Eve gasped as he wobbled, his legs burning with pins and needles as they regained warmth and feeling.

Eve fell down to his knees, breathing heavily.

"Thanks." He said.

"No problem, now let's bust out of here!" Hibiki turned on the door.

"Archive!"

"White Fang!"

Their attacks slammed into the door dead on, a fluctuation of magic energy warping the space around the door as the Blue Pegasus wizards pushed against the barrier.

"Oh no!" Hibiki groaned as their attacks abruptly vanished, sucked away.

"Runes!" Eve exclaimed as the purple magic markings shimmered for a moment in the dim light of the cell before disappearing.

"Great...we have to wait for Ren." Hibiki grumbled, dropping down to sit next to Eve, who was flexing ankles and bending his knees to get his legs to wake up faster.

"He better not take too long."

* * *

Up in the halls of the Draconem Heart castle

* * *

Ren flung himself backwards as Onyx, the rock dragonslayer, stalked down the hallway toward him, his breath attack, composed of stones, dirt, and sand, dispersing.

Ren held his breath as he dodged around a corner behind him and pressed back against the wall.

"You know I can smell your cologne and hear you cussing under your breath, right? I may not have gotten to compete in the games, but I'm still a dragonslayer. Not a weakling."

Ren started as Onyx peeked around the corner he hid behind.

"Rock dragon diamond fist!" Onyx barked, a white casing of the gemstone surrounded his clenched fingers and he slammed said fist forward into Ren's chest.

"ARRGH!" Ren was flung backwards, whacking into the wall at the end of the other hallway, spread eagle.

"Ariel phose!" Ren barked, swinging his arms and shooting off several monsoon power winds at Onyx.

The earth mage dropped to one knee and steeled himself against the winds, brown-black shaggy hair whipping, old logo tee shirt and fleece pants being plucked and pulled at, finally balancing, Onyx launched forward.

"Rock Dragon fang!"

Onyx flipped onto his hands and spun, his right leg producing a rumbling blast of earth and stone, shaping into a fang-like object that struck Ren hard. Ren hit the wall yet again as Onyx rolled across his back and jackknifed to his feet.

The wind mage dropped to his knees, then slowly wobbled up again.

Realizing he stood no chance against the slayer, Ren turned, thankfully still in the right hall to reach his friends, created a violent gust of wind. Enough to cause Onyx to stagger and give Ren the chance to make his move.

He surrounded himself with a wind bubble and blasted off down the corridor, flying to quickly for the befuddled, pajama clad, sleepy slayer to follow.

Ren hurtled down the corridors, sending carvings tumbling and pictures rattling as he sped past.

Down the unusually long flight of steps and into the dungeons he flew, shaping the winds around him with a skill he'd trained for years to master.

Ren landed squarely in front of Eve and Hibiki's cell.

"Been waiting long?" He asked in a sort of dry humor as he used his wind to break down the door from the outside, where the runes were weak.

"Not really, now let's just get out of here!" Eve exclaimed as he stood, his legs recovered and ready to be put to good use.

The trio ran up the steps and through the hallways. Ducking behind walls and holding their breaths as the members of Draconem fanned out through the entire guild searching for them.

They were spotted by a large group as the darted between the halls.

"There!" Ultear, the leader of the squad, cried, pointing at them.

"Dang it!" Hibiki yelped as they took off, crystal balls of Ultear and her time arc mage friends dive bombing them. A gust of Ren's wind pushed down the large door that was their only escape route. They charged through, only to find themselves in the courtyard.

A courtyard that, in the space of time during which Ultear had used her own lacrima to notify the Master, had been filled with over two hundred lost wizards.

The Blue Pegasus Trimen stood about as much chance against the might of the most powerful light guild in the land as an ant.

"Ok. Ok. Can we talk? Because this is really just a _huge_ misunderstanding!" Hibiki tried, raising his hands up in a gesture of peace as he, Ren, and Eve were boxed in on all sides by snarling, glaring lost wizards. Ren winced when he spotted Layla, Eve shuddered under Rina's fury, and Hibiki felt like Meredy was going to burn a hole through his face just by staring at it.

"I understand perfectly well what I need to."

Hibiki gulped as Master Dracoya, still donning bedroom slippers, a tightly tied red robe, and a messy head of frizzy, pale green hair, parted the crowd and came to stand imposingly before the three of them.

"You broke into our guild hall. You hacked our defense spells. You attacked our members. Why you did it is what I want to know."

Master Dracoya demanded, jabbing a finger in Hibiki's chest.

Hibiki spilled out the whole tale, from the drunken Master Bob to the mysterious request to the village avoiding the big question to breaking in.

When he finished he waited, wondering what would be their fate, when the Master of the dragons stepped back and sighed.

"So...you woke us up for a good reason." She summed up.

"Yes. Definitely, and we're very sorry too, _right_ guys?" Hibiki asked, elbowing Eve and Ren.

"Yeah, really really sorry!" "Very, extremely, sorry!"

Master Dracoya massaged her head for a moment before.

"I'm going to have to trust you three."

"Huh?" Hibiki asked dumbly as Master Dracoya looked him dead in the eye.

Hibiki felt as thought she was glaring into his very soul.

" _Never_ speak a word of this place. You were never here, you do not know any more about Draconem Heart than any other person from the games does. You've never been to our guild hall, and you haven't seen anything here, understand?"

She demanded as she clenched her fist, obviously if Hibiki said no he'd be receiving a very powerful uppercut that may or may not be laced with the heavenly power that put this woman in charge.

"Y-yes. Uh, yes, ma'am!" Hibiki stuttered, the trimen following in suit.

Master Dracoya sighed and stepped back.

"Well I guess you'll have to spend the night here. Since you already here you may as well spend the day tomorrow, I'll take advantage of this event to test something. You three will be our first visitors from the outside, and depending on how this goes, perhaps we'll invite more."

Hibiki could have passed our right there on the field when he realized he and his guild mates were off the hook.

"But for now..."

Master Dracoya stifled a yawn.

"I'm going back to bed."

The rest of her guild promptly turned their backs on the Trimen and shuffled off, leaving their 'guests' in the courtyard.

"Us too."

* * *

 ** _Well, they survived! Next chapter I'm gonna take advantage of the Trimen's too, to go around the castle a bit more, who wants them to do turf sprints with Sofie? (Me! Me! I do!) So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks for reading!_**


	11. Not a bad thing at all

**_So, to recap, the Trimen broke into Draconem Castle. They got chased around by a bunch of angry sleep deprived wizards, they were, in the end, invited to spend the day at the castle, let's see how the dragon's treat their first guests!_**

* * *

Hibiki wandered down the hall, he had been up late into the night exploring the castle now that he had permission to, as a 'guest'.

Ren and Eve had passed out on the field, Hibiki had as well, but he'd awoken at 6:30, had had begun looking around.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the loud, ground shaking bongs of the clock tower. Almost instantly he heard shuffling feet and streams of chatter. The dark blonde glanced to the side when he heard someone approaching.

"Is your back ok?"

He turned to see Meredy walking toward him. She wore her usual pink, white frilled dress, with her blue cape, minus her former guilds mark, swaying behind her.

She pushed up her headband as she came, tucking a few wayward strands behind her ears.

"Sorry about pegging you yesterday, but you started it." The girl said.

Hibiki recalled the encounter and winced.

"And I'm really sorry I hit you with a book. You just startled me." Hibiki explained.

Meredy laughed lightly and passed it off.

"What do you say I give you a grand tour after breakfast?" She asked as they walked off down the hall, Hibiki following Meredy's lead.

Hibiki smiled slightly, in an almost surprised way.

"I think that'd be nice."

* * *

In the Dragon's hangout

* * *

"Hibiki!"

The archive mage turned to see Ren sitting at a table with Zahn and Sofie.

"Hey Ren." Hibiki walked over to see all of them devouring a plate of heavenly looking pancakes, slathered in butter and syrup, with bacon on the side, and a large mug of coffee.

"Whoa, where do I get some?" Hibiki demanded, feeling the emptiness of his stomach as a put a hand to it.

"Over here!" Meredy called to him, waving from where she'd joined the line moving quickly down the bar filled with heavenly smelling breakfast delicacies , he turned and walked over to the pink haired mage.

As the room filled with chatter, yells, and greetings of 'Good Morning' echoing through the hall, Hibiki gratefully seized a plate and prepared to squelch his growing hunger.

"Is it always this chaotic?" Hibiki asked as he loaded his tray in the line with Meredy just behind him, piling her own plate high.

"Nah..." Meredy said, chuckling as she filled up her own cup with tea.

"It's really quiet this morning." She commented, glancing over her shoulder at the wizards moving about, grabbing tables, dragging up seats, and settling in to a large plate of freshly cooked food.

Hibiki stared at her, than checking to see if he could still hear with the loud voices, clashing cutlery, and occasional blast of a spell, a product of a wizard's plate, or a wizard, being knocked to the floor.

"Really?" He questioned as he followed Meredy to a table, leaving Ren to enjoy his conversation with Zahn and Sofie, noting that a nervous appearing Eve had arrived with a disgruntled looking Rina to join them.

He sat down at a smaller, four person table, with Meredy.

"Well, none of the...oh wait, I take it back, here they come." Meredy muttered as sounds of conflict could be heard from beyond the iron bound wooden double doors of the main hall.

"YOU TOOK MY BOOK AGAIN YOU PYRO! GIVE IT BACK!"

"COME AND GET IT LAMPPOST!"

"Not this again." Meredy sighed, picking at her pancakes.

Hibiki had already shoveled down several large bites, and swallowed to ask.

"Are those the dragonslayers?" He asked.

"Yup. And they always bring a reason for a brawl. Sounds like this ones an old classic." The sensory link wizard grumbled, stabbing a pancake, tearing off a piece, dipping it in syrup and shoving it into her mouth.

"Sting is secretly a huge bookworm, spends all his free time in the library or with the research lacrima. Natsu just loves to steal his book, than taunt him with it."  
Meredy leaned in and whispered into Hibiki's ear for the next part.

"I think he actually reads romance novels, I've caught him using an armchair to fly up to that section of the library's content shelves before. Natsu's to dumb to check the title of the book when he steals it, but one of these days he's gonna find out, spread the word, and Sting's gonna _blow_."

Natsu and Sting came barreling through the door in an explosion of fists and petty insults, mixed with fire and lasers.

Rogue followed, looking weary of their constant battling, and walked off to get some food himself, Wendy racing in to join him. Laxus, along with Onyx and Misty, entered, talking rather peacefully amongst themselves.

Cobra's long strides causes his white coat tails to drift in the air behind him, the former dark mage had plugged his ears with his fingers in fury.

"PLEASE JUST SHUT UP!" He begged.

Orchid peeked over his shoulder, as usual, she was located behind the poison wizard, and as usual Cobra was acting as though it were completely normal.

Because, unfortunately, by now it was.

Hibiki ducked when a fork was thrown directly over his head, by who he didn't even know, and collided with Natsu's head.

"OK! Which one of you geniuses threw that!?" The fire dragonslayer demanded, fisting his hands and lighting them aflame as he turned on the offending wizard.

Sting took this opportunity to slam his booted foot into the pyro's back. Natsu went flying, screaming pathetic insults, into the far wall.

He dropped like a falling stone, smashing the table beneath him. Sting began backing away in terror when he realized just who's breakfast he'd destroyed.

As Natsu wobbled to his feet with several pancakes and a square of butter to top it off on his head, a _spiked_ booted foot sent him hurtling back into his blonde rival.

"Why. Do. You. _Idiots._ Have. To. Fight. All. The. TIME!?" Accentuating every syllable, a dangerous voice bit through the air.

"S-Sorry?" Sting tried as he sat up with Natsu sprawled across his lap.

"Well I'm not! This is my shot! FIGHT ME VIPER!" Natsu barked as leapt up, used Sting as a springboard, and raced across the black wood floors, jumping from tan wooden table to tan wooden table. He cocked his arm, fist hardening...

"I'M ALL FIRED UP!" He cried.

Viper slammed an uppercut directly into his stomach.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Especially for a growing boy." Viper imitated a motherly voice as Natsu hit the ground with a thud.

She turned on Sting.

"Maybe I should teach you a lesson about that?" She threatened.

Hibiki let out a choke cry as a tight grip wrapped around his wrist and dragged him under the table.

"You finished eating?"

He glanced over to see Meredy kneeling beside him under the protection of the tan wood as a loud blast broke the temporary silence of the hall, rattling the tables and the portraits on the walls.

Hibiki nodded, he was, he'd inhaled the meal.

"Great, now let's get out of here before the bomb drops."  
Hibiki glanced out to see Viper using a nightfall demon to chase Sting and now, several other wizards including Ren, around the hall.

Natsu had punched Gajeel, who'd fallen onto Zahn, who'd shoved Sofie, who'd been preparing to fire a lightning strike, and accidentally struck Ultear.

The woman had rebelled by sending her orb to strike Natsu, the one who'd started the trend, and the sight of Natsu clinging to a crystal ball, whipping around the room, seemed to set everyone off.

Spelling were flung haphazardly through the air, blasts of fire, ice, wind, lightning, iron pillars and chunks of stone, brilliant light shows and a beautiful vines of plants and flowers. Shadowy eruptions began to blot out parts of the scene. All in all creating a vortex of brawling lost mages, shouting, punching, kicking, and, of course, casting destructive spells.

Meredy and Hibiki did the sniper crawl across the floor, slipping between fallen piles of food and stomping feet, to reach the door.

Meredy shut the door behind them with a resounding 'thump' and turned to lean against it with a sigh.

"And here I was thinking we'd have a quiet morning." She murmured.

Hibiki looked over her, her hair was slightly frazzled, her green eyes were alight with breathlessness from there escape, and her cape was pulled tightly around her.

He found himself feeling slightly breathless himself.

"Well." Meredy had caught her breath and dusted her skirt and leggings off with quick swipes of his palms.

"Let's go, we can start at the courtyard and move up towards the south turret overlooking the lake." She suggested.

Hibiki cocked his head to one side, matching Meredy's wide, bottomless green eyes.

"Alright. Is it just the two of us?" The archive mage asked.

Meredy shrugged, "Is that a bad thing?" She asked worriedly.

Hibiki shook his head instantly, "No. Not at all."

* * *

 ** _That's it! I need a ship name, help me! Meriki maybe? Anyone? Well, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	12. A brand new reason

**_Ok, I am so so so sorry that took way longer than usual, I had a bit of writers block and than I had an idea I had to scribble down._**

 ** _I scribbled down 47 pages and 28,000 words worth._**

 ** _Yeah, I got majorly distracted, plus, you know, life's distracting, so, sorry again, but I got it covered! Enjoy, Draconem Rising._**

* * *

"So, what do you think?" Meredy asked.

She had shown Hibiki around the castle, of course, she'd kept him from all of the secrets that were still hidden away beneath the building that looked to be from a fairy tale, but it was still impressive.

"Incredible." Hibiki replied, the two of them had arrived up on the south turret, the flag of Draconem Heart was snapping in the wind above them, and Meredy's pink hair was rippling out behind her.

"Hey, so how did you join Draconem Heart, anyway? I remember hearing you used to be a dark mage but turned a new leaf like Cobra did." Hibiki began as he looked out over their view of the lake, watching the waters being gently stirred by the breeze.

Hibiki's eyes drifted to Meredy as he asked this, glancing over to her, he found himself caught all over again in those sparkling emerald eyes.

Meredy looked back out over the lake, a spiritual look on her face.

"When I was very young, my home town was destroyed...it was Ultear that did it."

"But she's your adoptive mother, I thought?" Hibiki asked with concern.  
Meredy nodded, "We both had horrible, torn pasts, she raised me as a member of Grimore Heart. We thought that this life didn't matter, because we would all be reborn into a new age of magic. We were so terribly wrong."

Meredy leaned on the edge of the tower's wall, taking in the sparks dancing across the surface of the electric moat.

"God, I was so wrong. It was Fairy Tail that showed us our faults, I thought they were the best people you could hope to find, if I wasn't a criminal I would have gone to join them."

Meredy sighed, "They made bad choices too...they did things to my friends I don't think any Draconem's will forgive them for. It's a shame, really. Fairy Tail and Draconem Heart might have been wonderful friends, we're so much alike. Rule breakers, always toeing the line, always stepping up to the plate to protect and serve. Us Dragon's have something different, though. We were shunned, we're all freaks and we know it."

"Freaks? Meredy, your not a freak, why would you say that?" Hibiki asked, appalled as Meredy just gave him a saddened smile.

"We're different and we're dangerous. But I don't mind it." Was all she said as a reply to Hibiki's wide eyes and concerned expression.

"I never cared much for my own life. I told you about how my sensory links work, right? I can force my pain onto others if it's necessary, but I rarely resort to that, most of the time I rely on my sword play skills and minor re-quip abilities. But when I was younger, I used to use the ability to focus emotions so much more."  
Hibiki had no clue why Meredy was speaking to him about this all of the sudden, perhaps she felt like she needed to unburden herself. But what had he done to gain so much of her trust that she would bare her soul to him?

"I remember so vividly how I took joy in watching two people trying to sort their way through other emotions than their own. I found it funny to watch someone toss their heads back and scream when they found themselves feeling a different beings love, hate, anger, joy, and sorrow. My greatest weapon was my emotions. My battle torn soul, revenge thirsty yet quietly crying, rage filled yet drained of anything, my emotions were so twisted and jumbled and turned all around that if I forced them upon another, they'd become so confused and constricted that defeating them was easy as a single swipe of the sword. Even more powerful than that is an attack I've never been pushed far enough to use, my most threatening weapon was my own death."  
Hibiki shook his head slightly.

"No way...the links work that far?" He asked in disbelief, inquiry written all over his face.

Meredy nodded.

"If I killed myself, anyone I was linked to would die as well. It's the perfect defense mechenism. If someone was trying to kill me, I could link myself to them, than, if they killed me, they'd be killing themselves. I almost carried out that tactic of killing myself to kill my opponents. Death meant nothing to me. But when I fought Fairy Tail, and we were defeated. When Ultear was finally cleansed of so much darkness, that only the wisps of it remained.

I found myself regretting so much, but finding so much love in my soul that I was...I was so happy."

Meredy crossed her arms atop the stone turret wall and rested her chin upon them, sticking back her hips and rocking on her heels.

"We freed Jellal later on, we formed our own guild, but after only so many years of operation, everything folded in on everything else. The guild disbanded, our new marks disappeared, and for the second time in my life, my guild had been ripped away from me. We wandered for several months, considering what to do. We ended up in the West Woodsy, and found this place. I had no idea I was a lost mage, but I realized then that sensory link is a rare magic. I couldn't believe it when they all welcomed us. We were criminal's, but they believe our stories and our change. We were accepted in an instant. And..."  
Meredy spun and gripped either side of her cape, stretching it out to reveal the Draconem Heart insignia in a silvery color on her back.

"...we found a new home." She finished.

Hibiki smiled as Meredy's tale came to a close.

"That's amazing...I don't have a past like that. I was kid on my own, growing up at Blue Pegasus, nothing tragic like what happened to you."  
Meredy tilted her head and a warm smile illuminated her face.

"I'm happy you've never met things like that. It means your cleaner of the darkness than I am."

Hibiki took a step closer to Meredy, Meredy leaned her head back slightly to look up into the dark blondes eyes.

They found their hands meeting, they found their fingers intertwining.

"I don't see any darkness in you, Meredy, to me...you seemed wrapped in light."

They came closer, sinking into each others eyes, Hibiki felt like he was drowning in those emerald orbs.

Their lips met.

Atop that tower they connected, their hearts reaching out to each other's, with the breeze spiraling through the both of the wizards's hair, causing Meredy's cape to flutter around her.

That was when the clock tower struck six o'clock loudly, the bells echoing through the blue skies as they broke apart.

Meredy felt a blush color her cheeks as Hibiki's face flushed as well.

"I-I-I..."  
"I-I...I'm...w-well..."

The two of them stuttered in sync for several seconds before they realized they were still holding hands.

While Hibiki felt as though he should release her, he didn't, and Meredy did the exact same.

"That...was nice." Meredy spoke first.

"Yeah..." Hibiki agreed.

Meredy looked up at this Blue Pegasus wizard, marveling that the first time they'd meet it had been while splashing into icy water, and the second time they'd both hit each other with books.

"Maybe...if you'd like, that is...after I leave...sometime, maybe in a couple of weeks, we could meet...in my guild's town?" Hibiki asked, scanning his mind for the suave lines and smooth moves that he was so used to using. Only to come up with stuttering words and a worried expression.

Meredy smiled at him.

"I think I'd like that. I really think I would." Meredy said as she released Hibiki's hands.

They felt empty without her's to hold.

"R-Really?" Hibiki asked, still searching for a stammer free voice.

Meredy nodded.

"Really. I'll call you on lacrima, ok?"

Hibiki felt as though if he turned and jumped off of the tower, he could soar all the way home on the wings of his heart alone.

"Ok." Hibiki agreed.

With a small, shy, three fingered wave, Meredy turned and left, climbing down the ladder and disappearing from view.

Hibiki spun around once on ditzy legs, usually calculating, genius mind fuzzy.

When the Trimen's left that night, across the drawbridge as the members of Draconem waved them off from the front wall, Eve had a new set of hailstorm bruises and, by some miracle, Rina's communication lacrima's contact number, and Ren had lost about fifteen pounds being chased through the castle by Layla, who still desired revenge.

The archive mage of the group looked up into the crowds of mages and saw her, Meredy, a jubilant smile on her face, a rosy tint still visible on her cheeks, hooded cape rippling behind her along with her long pink hair, earmuffs still on even though it was summer, waving to him in particular.

Hibiki left with a dreamy look on his face and a brand new reason to try and swear off flirting once and for all.

* * *

 ** _Look who's love struck! Is my romance writing terrible or what? Yeah, I tried, ok? I really did. So, next time we'll start the actually arc, get dramatic, get action-y, and get exciting, so, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	13. Consumed by darkness, Cole Wingheart

**_Ok, I am going a bit slower than I usually do, but I'm trying to build up this big exciting plan! Also, new character intro here with a kid named Cole Wingheart who joined up recently, his hairstyle is a lot like a young Alzack Connells. As for his Transfer magic, that ones all mine, as far as I know there's no other type of magic like it on Fanfiction or otherwise._**

 ** _So, for your patience and amazingly kind reviews, please enjoy this over 2,000 word's chapter!_**

* * *

It had been a week since the Trimen's misadventures in the Draconem Heart castle. At the moment, Master Dracoya was sitting up in her office, working with the irritating amount of paper work that came with being the number one guild.

That was when one of their new recruits, a boy of thirteen who'd joined shortly after the games ended, came stumbling in.

His name was Cole Wingheart, he had a head of long hair that covered half his face that, thanks to his magic, changed through all the colors in imagination, though he claimed it was naturally black he didn't really know. His skin was tanned dark by the sun over his many miles of travel. His guild mark, on his shoulder, had that property as well, Master Dracoya knew that when it went on it had been green, but now it was a strikingly bright red.

He wore earthy styles, a poncho that was slit at the shoulder, allowing the sight of his shoulders and guild mark, with tasseling, a tank top beneath the poncho, cargo pants with several sharp, zig zagged designs and plain shoes. He wore headband that had two large feathers to the right side of his head and several braided strands of leather, the headband itself being a zig zagged pattern to match his pants. He had arm bands that reached from his wrist to just beneath his elbow on each arm, with the same zig zagged design as his headband and pants. Color didn't matter with Cole's clothing, for his magic caused the colors to change dozens of times a day, sometimes several times per hour. His magic dealt with sensing the people around him, the reason Cole had come to the guild was that, after seeing them on lacrima at the games, he'd decided to seek help.

He could take on the magic of others, temporarily.

He couldn't take a re-quip mages abilities, or any holder mages at all. But it happened with a touch, and sometimes he'd do it without meaning to, the power was that uncontrollable. When Natsu had challenged him to a fight the day he'd first joined Cole had simply dodged and sucked out all of Natsu's energy with the tap of a finger and the flash of an orange magic circle, the circle being orange due to Natsu's brand of magic being expressed through that color. He'd bit back shriek of pain, than caused Natsu to be temporarily unable to use his flames. Cole had than promptly roared all of the fire magic out into the sky and tried frantically to apologize while everyone around him laughed their heads off and Natsu pitched a fit trying to figure out what had happened to his magic.

If Natsu had continued the fight, which, thankfully for the younger Draconem, he didn't, Cole would have been destroyed, for his hand-to-hand fighting strength could never match the dragonslayers. For Cole, though, the process was none to easy, taking the magic was difficult, the more powerful the wizard, the more painful the transfer. After Cole ran out of the power he took from the other wizard, he didn't know what would happen. He could feel better than ever after the use of his magic, he could feel no better or worse, like the aftermath of his 'battle' with Natsu Dragneel. He could also collapse from sudden exhaustion. He'd long ago called his magic, which he'd never known another person to have, Transfer Magic. His most powerful gift, or how he viewed it, a curse, was the ability to sense the magics and, if he wished, the intention of the ones around him.

An example he'd given Master Dracoya when he'd arrived at the castle gate was that when he read her intention, he could feel the kindness of her wishes to help lost wizards, and the fierceness of her protective nature towards her guild and her children. He could also tell she was a dragonslayer, though as to what type, he'd guessed 'something to do with light' which had been close enough. She'd also been given an example of Cole's color changing, for when he'd been in the office, only with her, his clothes had turned red and gold, his eyes going scarlet.

At the moment, Cole was donning black clothing with white accents, his hair was jet black, and the feathers adorning his headband were blood red.

"M-Master..." He groaned as he leaned heavily on the wall, looking ready to pass out.

"Cole!" Master Dracoya darted out from behind her desk, knocking over her quill and scattering a few pages of her paperwork to the floor.

"Cole, what's wrong?" She asked as he gripped to boy's arms, trying to keep him from falling as he sank to knees on the floor, bringing Master Dracoya down to sit alongside him.

"I...I feel...something terrible...it's coming closer." He whispered.

"What is it? Can you sense it?" She asked, this was redundant question, for he clearly sensed something dark, she could tell that by taking one glance at the boys dark clothes and hair.

"The...the...the monster, the shadows." He shuddered as he attempted to focus on it's intentions.

"It wants...to...the mages of the games...oh god..."

Cole couldn't hold up any longer, and slumped forward into Master Dracoya's arms.

She crouched down and scooped him up before sprinting from her office, taking him straight to the infirmary and laying him in a bed.

After making sure the young mage was comfortable, she turned on her heel and strode swiftly from the room, off to find a certain blue haired dragonslayer.

* * *

On the upper level of the Dragon's Hangout.

* * *

"La-La! You beat me again!" Wendy moaned, tossing her cards onto the table after Layla had shown she had yet another winning hand.

"I'm a trickster mage, you can't just beat a trickster at cards! Cards are my thing!"

"I thought clowns were your thing." Onyx asked as he leaned on the back of the couch Wendy sat at.

"Well yeah, those too!" Layla cried, as if this should have been obvious.

Wendy looked up at Onyx, in many ways he'd filled the void inside of her that Gray had left behind, becoming a brother to her, along with the other slayers and many other mages of Draconem Heart.

"Wendy!" All of them snapped their heads to the stairs to see the worry creased features of Master Dracoya as she cleared the last stair and moved quickly over to them, her usual dragon scalelike red and gold dress billowing majestically behind her.

"Master? What's the matter?" Layla asked as she stood up and, with a snap of her multicolored nail tipped fingers, swept all of the cards she and Wendy had been playing with off of the table.

She removed her top hat and, with another snap, all of the cards disappeared inside.

Unfazed by this little magic trick courtesy of Layla, Master Dracoya explained.

"Cole, I'm sure you've all gotten to know him by now, just burst into my office, relayed some very disturbing information he'd gathered via his Transfer Magic, as he calls it, and collapsed. You can help him, right Wendy?"

Wendy fisted her hands beneath her chin and nodded confidently.

"I'm sure there's something I can do!" She exclaimed.

With that the four of them, Onyx and Layla coming along out of curiosity, and made their way through the warm and familiar halls, towards the infirmary. Once they arrived, Wendy scanned the unconscious boy on the bed with her magic. His clothes and hair were still black, the feathers and guild mark still looking bloodstained, such was the color of the red.

"His magic, it's...different, right?" Onyx questioned.

"Indeed." Master Dracoya said, she'd tucked her arms into the opposite sleeves and was looking on with concern, she'd known Cole for a matter of months, and already he'd wormed his way inside, beyond being a guild member, he was one of her children, now, and she was fearful for him, rightly so.

"His abilities are uncontrollable. If he touches you there's a chance he'll absorb part of your powers. Of course, it doesn't effect you as much unless he wants it too. He showed me how he's able to drain your physical energy instead, he could stagger me, if he wanted to. I'm very glad he chose to come to us, I can help him to get his magic under control, he's exactly the kind of wizard I formed this guild to be able to help." The Heavenly dragonslayer continued.

Wendy had been working her magic for several minutes now, and at last.

"He's waking up!" She reported.

Master Dracoya, Layla, and Onyx all crowded around the bed on both sides as Cole's hazy, currently onyx eyes opened.

"Cole, how do you feel?"

Cole took a moment to properly register that someone was talking to him, and another moment longer to decide just what he wanted to say as a response.

"It's...passing. I'm starting to try and tune it out."

They all looked on as, after a tense few seconds during which Cole's eyes had yet again closed, the black of his clothing began to recede, replaced with a dark shade of blue. The feather on his headband changed to white long with the braiding pieces of leather, the tassels of his poncho mimicking them. His guild mark was slowly fighting away the bloody crimson to become a tint of vivid white. Cole was evidently trying to focus on a different source of magic that was closer to him, and Wendy's healing magic had fit the bill. Coupled with the fact that the magic was still being used on him, Wendy doing her best to aid Cole in the effort of cleansing his system of the dark energy.

Finally, Cole sat up, leaning back on his left arm and putting his right hand to his head, and the four around the bed let out breaths they hadn't realize they'd been holding.

He realized everyone was staring at him and gave them a confused tilt of his head.

"What?" He asked, touching his headband to check that it was on straight.

"Your hair..." Wendy said as she stopped her magic, knowing Cole didn't need the extra assistance anymore.

"What's wrong? Didn't it turn blue or white?" He asked, glancing down to check that his poncho had turned blue and tank top white, which meant that his hair should have ended up as one of the two.

"No...it's still black." Layla said, rummaging around in her top hat and producing a mirror, handing it to her new guild mate.

Cole looked into the mirror and was met with a sight that was quite bizarre for him, he was used to his hair being the same color as his clothes, all the time. His hair, which covered the right half of his face and was parted away so it only covered down to his cheekbone, was still onyx black. His left eye, the one that was visible, had become blue, and, with a gulp, he pulled back his bangs to look at his right eye.

It was darker than ever.

"Um...I'm stuck three quarters of the way between Wendy's magic and that...things." Cole realized, his hair hanging back down to cover the abnormal of the two eyes yet again.

"Wendy?" Master Dracoya asked as Wendy shook her head slowly.

"I don't get it, I could feel all of the dark energy leaving him, it should be gone. Keep trying to focus on my magic, ok? I'll try and help you."

She was addressing Cole now, and the Transfer mage nodded.

Cole closed his eyes and Wendy activated her blue mist yet again.

Layla, Onyx, and their Master all watched helplessly as the two thirteen year olds struggled to bring Cole fully out of the darkness that had formerly consumed him.

Cole's eyes screwed up and he gritted his teeth, hands gripping two fistfuls of the sheets he sat atop of, pouring all his effort into finding and forcing out the wisps of nightmare's left inside him.

Layla was the first one to see the small strip of blue that certainly hadn't been in Cole's hair a few minutes earlier.

"Your doing it!" She whisper-screamed, hoping she was sounding encouraging.

They watching, amazed at the way this unique type of lost magic was working as, slowly but surely, a deep sapphire blue began overtaking the black of Cole's hair.

Finally, Cole let out a victorious shout as he dropped backwards to lay on the bed yet again, arms thrown out to his sides, with a head of hair that, while far darker than Wendy's, was blue all the same.

"Did it work?" He asked, fearing the answer.

"Your hair is blue, but...?" Onyx started the question of what everyone had been wondering.

Cole, regretfully and less than willingly, sat up and took up the hand held mirror Layla had pulled from her hat.

He brushed back the hair covering up his right eye, took a deep breath, and looked into the mirror.

A pair of watery blue eyes stared back.

"Phew..." He exhaled as he handed the mirror back to Layla.

"That was scary, I can't remember even one time that my hair didn't change to match my clothes." Cole rubbed his head as he recovered from the battle.

"Thanks for helping, Wendy, I couldn't have done it on my own."

Wendy sat down on the edge of the bed next to him and smiled.

"Happy to help." She replied.

Master Dracoya put a hand on Cole's shoulder.

"I hate to be asking you so soon, but what was it that caused this strange transfer?"

Cole sighed.

"Something big, it's coming. That dragon that you and your other dragonslayer friend fought, Wendy."

Wendy's eyes went wide with horror as she covered her mouth with both hands.

"Shadowlogia." Master Dracoya hissed hatefully.

Cole nodded, "It has an intention, I was able to read it, even from so far away."

"Cole, please tell us all you can remember, this is valuable information. Lives could be at risk." Master Dracoya urged, her hand not moving from the young man's shoulder.

Cole relaxed his shoulders in an attempt to calm himself from panicking all over again at the thought of the dragon's purpose.

"It has the ability to absorb pure magic, transform any magic it devours into nightmare magic. It puts the mage the monster takes the power from into a coma like state, a sort of living death, and..."

Cole shuddered, his blood running cold at the notation Shadowlogia's nightmare had place within his mind.

"It's after the seven best teams of the grand magic games. It...it doesn't know where we are, I managed to tell that much."

All of the Draconem's breathed a sigh of relief, their location was still concealed, even to an all powerful dragon.

"But it knows about the other guilds. It wishes to go from one to the next, but it only wants the teams, the people who competed. Wait..."

He rubbed his temple as if this would help him recall the fleeting imagines he'd managed to glean from the monsters brain.

"Except Blue Pegasus. It doesn't want to bother with anybody but three from that guild. The guys that just broke in here, their the dragon's only targets. It..."  
Cole hesitated.

"It actually thinks Ichiyia is gross."

Wendy couldn't help but snort at this, even a dragon didn't want Ichiyia, the idea alone was greatly amusing.

"But after it absorbs all of the wizards it plans to, it'll have enough power...to do what it's brother failed at."

"What?" Wendy squeaked, fearing she already knew the answer.

Cole looked Master Dracoya in the eye when he next spoke.

"To destroy the entire continent."

Master Dracoya's face was impassive, while Layla and Onyx hung off of every word in terror of the dragon's great scheme, she only listened, and thought.

At last, she made her decision.

When Cole had solemnly finished telling of his what he'd learned while consumed by nightmare magic, she spoke, slowly and deliberately, one hand raised to be sure no one interrupted her.

"We will send two wizards apiece to each of the top seven guilds to tell them of this plight we now face, whatever we think of certain guilds at the moment, we will face this together."

"What will our guild members do when they get to the other guilds?"

Layla asked, eyes wide, already on her feet and prepared to act.

Master Dracoya let out a long, slow breath.

She allowed her gaze to move across each of all four of their faces.

"We bring them to the only place on earth that's made to survive a dragon attack. Right here, Draconem Heart castle."

* * *

 ** _...I got nothing to say on that one really, talk about dramatic ending, I'm patting myself on the back for that! Well, we got the arc a'rolling and things are getting crazy! So what do you guys think of Cole? Please let me know if you want to see more of him in your reviews! So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks and please read next time!_**


	14. Dragon's at Lamia

**_And here we go, the great gathering of the guilds has begun! Please enjoy!_**

* * *

"Do you have any idea why Master sent me along with you?"

Cole questioned nervously, Wendy shrugged from the opposite side of the train car they were riding in.

"I guess she wanted someone to have my back, I dunno." The sky dragonslayer guessed as she thought back to the Master giving her orders, she'd also insisted that Charles stay with the other exceeds at the castle, Charles was one of the quickest exceeds at Draconem, and if she needed to send any information to the teams abroad, she was one of the first choices.

"But I'm hopeless in a fight, I'll do more harm than good."

Cole insisted, allowing his gaze to slide out the window as he fidgeted with his headband, which, along with his clothing, was currently tuned to Wendy's magic, and thus was coated in blues and whites.

Wendy gave her new friend a warm smile and shook her head, her pigtails bouncing, she donned her red jacket with the orange tie and black pleated skirt. The little animal ear hair clips holding up her pigtails were red, as they normally were when she wore this outfit.

"Your great, Cole! You read minds! You can absorb other peoples energy, right?"

"But if we go up against someone strong the transfer will be horrible and I'll probably pass out and become a dead weight when I run out of power. Also, I don't read minds, I sense intentions, I can't scan for a specific thing like other mental powered mages can, I just know what the person, or dragon, I'm sensing wants the most, and what their plan is to gain that thing."  
Cole grumbled, scowling as he slouched back in his seat and crossed his arms. His headband scrunched down onto his forehead and he didn't even bother to push it back into line.

Wendy wanted to give Cole a pat on the hand or a hug, for this was her nature, but as these idea's crossed her mind, she realized they were blocked to her due to the fact that if she touched Cole directly, their was a chance of him absorbing her magic. Though she never liked to boast, Wendy knew she was powerful, and though the transfer couldn't harm her unless Cole wished it too, the strength of her dragonslayer power funneling into him could be grueling to the dark skinned boy.

Wendy chose to attempt talking Cole out of his grump inside.

"I don't see why you hate your magic so much." She began.

Cole sniffed at the thought, rolling his eyes.

"Sure you don't, you don't know what it's like to not be able to shake hands with someone when you meet them, to be looked at like your a freak when your hair, eyes, and clothes change from green to red to yellow to blue in the space of minutes in public. People think I'm a show off, that I use magic in public to rub in everyones faces that I'm a mage and they aren't. But I'd give anything just to be a regular everyday human. Anything to be able to walk up to someone and shake their hand without fear that they'll collapse or I'll collapse when I so much as brush their skin." Cole growled.

Wendy looked at him with a saddened smile.

"Your right."

Cole's currently watery blue eyes darted up to Wendy's chocolate brown with a look that spoke his confusion at her words.

"I don't know how that feels. I love my magic and would never want to not be a mage. But think about it this way, how many people can you help with your power? You've already saved so many wizards's lives because you sensed Shadowlogia's intentions. Also, when we band together and defeat Shadowlogia, than it'll have been you, you, Cole Wingheart, by warning us, that saved every last person in Fiore from this dragon. You'll have saved an entire continent, all thanks to your 'curse', your Transfer magic."

Cole snapped his head to one side to look out the window again.

"Whatever." He mumbled irritably, but Wendy knew she'd reached him, and given him something to think about.

They finally arrived at the guild they'd been sent to warn, Lamia Scale, and practically ran off the train.

"Oh, great..." Cole groaned as the colors in his outfit began flashing and other people in the crowded train station shot them sideways glances.

"Does that happen whenever your in public?"

"Only when there's several wizards nearby, and it doesn't happen at the guild anymore because I'm used to everyone, I just pick one person in the guild and use their magic to stop myself from going all chameleon."

He sighed as his clothes finally stopped on white and with trimmings of sheer blue.

"What's that?" Wendy asked.

"Depends, what color's my hair?" The Transfer mage questioned.

Wendy blinked.

"White." She replied, for the boys longish head of hair had turned the color of snow.

"Some ice or snow mage, something to do with winter. If my hair was blue it would have been a frigid water mage or perhaps a wind mage instead." Cole reported, for he'd figured out the color code of his clothes and hair and was able to puzzle out the type of mage he'd been tuned to.

"That must be one of Lamia's member's, I remember him, Lyon!"

The bluenette exclaimed.

"Well what are we waiting for?" Cole tossed his brown tasseled backpack, adorned with several feather charms dyed with different colors, over his shoulder, and took off, Wendy right behind him with her duffel, towards the Lamia Scale guild hall.

Wendy burst through the doors.

"We need to speak to your Master! It's really important!"

"Wendy!?" Cheila asked in shock.

Cole had suddenly turned pinks and blue.

"Oh, come on!" He screamed indignantly.

"Okay...why is your friend pink? I thought only Natsu rocked hair like that." Sherry asked.

"Also, is there any love with you guys, Wendy? Oh, I knew you'd find it!"

Cheila threw her arms around Wendy in a hug.

Wendy hurriedly hugged her back while crying out.

"He and I are good friends and nothing more. We're here on Master Dracoya's order and...if Cole starts changing color don't judge him, ok?"

"I can talk for myself!" Cole barked as he refocused on Wendy's magic, changing back to blue.

Only for the new color to be transmuted to rocky browns and grey's as Jura approached from behind.

"Our Master is away, something about a spinning contest she had to win."

"SHE'S ALWAYS DITCHING US FOR THAT CRAP!" Toby screamed.

"Don't get angry about it." Yuka sighed, shaking his head and scrunching his insanely huge eyebrows.

"So, what's the issue?" Lyon questioned, for he'd just entered the room as well.

In a flash, Cole had returned to white and blue.

"And what's up with him?" Toby questioned curiously.

"Jeez, haven't you people ever seen a Transfer mage before!?" Cole yelled, hating to be the center of attention when there was something far more important to discuss.

All of the Lamia mages shook their heads in perfect unison.

"No."

Cole groaned.

"I can't help it. I'm white and blue because the dude who just walked in, I assume, is a snow or ice mage. I was brown because Mr. Neekis is a rock mage, than before that was pink because of Wendy's friend's. Ok?"

"Wait...how is that useful in a fight or a..."

"NO TIME!" Wendy wailed.

"Oh, sorry, got off track, I guess." Cheila giggled.

"Ok, please do not interrupt us!" Wendy said.

Everyone nodded, and the Draconem wizard's explained of the quickly approaching threat.

"You guys finished at number four, and since our resident dragon tracker says it's going from seventh to first, you guys aren't a target for at least a few days, but we didn't want to risk it, so we came."

Cole took a few moments to realize that the 'dragon tracker' was him.

"W-Wait. I can't say for sure that Shadowlogia is going from worst to best, I mean, do dragon's watch the grand magic games or what?" He stuttered.

Wendy sighed, "He's not very confident." She said to the Lamia mages.

"Hey! Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" Cole ordered.

"Ok, but anyway, Cole's been inside the dragon's head."

"Read it's intention." Cole corrected.

"Right, sorry, read it's intention." Wendy agreed.

"It only wants the people who were on the team. Not the other members, it doesn't want to bother with them."

"Hold on...I know where this is going." Lyon said suspiciously. "You want to take us somewhere you think we'll be safe from the attack, look, we appreciate the concern, but we can't leave our guild to face the dragon alone!" The ice mage said measuredly.

"No, I don't think you understand." Wendy said, trying to get the white haired man, who was well known for being infamously stubborn, to see sense.

"If you come with us, the dragon won't attack you guild at all! I read into it's intention throughly as I could, to a point that I actually blacked out. It wants nothing to do with the rest of your guild mates, just you five."  
"And where exactly do you plan on taking us? I mean, not to be cocky, but Jura is a wizard saint, and the rest of us aren't exactly push overs, even for a dragon. So what kind of safe place are you dangling in front of us?"

Wendy glanced at Cole, and the two of them matched eyes for a moment.

"Draconem Heart, a place not even the dragon of nightmare's can find. A place that's stayed hidden away from the rest of the world for thirty years."

"F.Y.I, I hope it goes without saying that if we do take you, you can't tell anyone we're there." Cole added on to Wendy's statement.

All of their eyes were a bit wider.

"The Draconem Heart guild hall?" Cheila asked, already letting her imagination run away with her as she pictured an enormous fortress atop some distant mountain.

She didn't realize how close she was to the mark.

Wendy nodded, "Master Dracoya told us to bring each of the seven top teams to our guild hall. It's the safest place on earth to weather out a dragon attack. Mystic runes, safeguard spells, fourteen slayers of three different types. And just think how much more powerful we'd be if we all worked together? We'd add two more slayers to our ranks! More wizards, plus all of our guild."

"Which is number one at the moment." Cole yet again added.

Wendy gave them all a confident smile, fisting her hands beneath her chin in a signature pose, "We could finish this dragon once and for all!" She cried.

Lyon glanced around uncomfortably.

"I don't know. You say that the dragon won't attack if we leave, but how can we be so sure?"

Cole looked up to meet Lyon's concerned, flitting eyes.

"I know you don't know me, and I don't know you past the fact your an ice mage. But I was, ok, fine, inside it's head for a moment. I saw it's plan, it's intention. Thats my magic, that's what I do. I can read your intention right now, your worried for your guild mates, curious about our guild hall, and, even though you refuse to admit it, scared about the dragon. You can't decide between standing with your guild mates or a strategic withdraw that could save your guild the grief of battle. Your also wondering if Gray will be joining us in our final stand, to which the answer is yes, a team from Draconem Heart is heading for Fairy Tail as we speak. You were relieved by me saying that because you were very concerned about Gray's safety, for you view him as a brother of sorts. Do I need to keep going? Because I can."

Lyon was speechless, as were the rest of his teammates. Cole had just riddled out exactly what had been shooting around inside Lyon's mind.

"That is impressive, young man." Jura rumbled.

"Thank you, sir." Cole said politely, secretly excited that a wizard saint found his unique magic intriguing.

"Well, I think I'll be taking command of this decision." The mountain of a man continued.

Jura looked down at Wendy and Cole.

"We'll come with you to Draconem Heart."

* * *

 ** _Yes! Picking up speed! I'm gonna follow it all the way through with the Lamia guys that way I can pull a 'and meanwhile the other guild's were arriving' to avoid like fifteen chapters of useless inviting. I will, of course, include everyones reactions to the protection spells and Draconem Castle._**

 ** _And maybe even Toby falling in the electric moat. ;)_**

 ** _So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	15. Return

**_Ok, the team of Lamia Scale as agreed to come willing to Draconem Heart! Also, there will be no ColeXWendy as some of you have been suspecting! It will not happen they will just become very close friends and nothing more! So get your heads outta the shipping and here we go!_**

* * *

"All set!" Sherry sang, she, Lyon, Toby, Yuka, Cheila, and Jura were all standing behind their guild hall with their usual travel baggage, duffels and backpacks, at the ready.

Wendy smiled.

"We took a train from our home to here, but Master Dracoya told us to use these on our return trip. Cole?"

The currently blue garbed boy swung his backpack off of his shoulder and rummaged through it for a moment before producing eight small golden spheres.

"Everyone take one." Wendy said as Cole handed them all out.

Jura held up the small sphere and studied it.

"How does this thing work?" Yuka asked skeptically, twirling the small piece of magical equipment that was supposed to get him to a place none even knew existed.

"Like this." Cole turned his sphere to the side to show a single small indentation on it.

"Just send a spark of magic power into it and...see ya there!"

Cole shouted this last part as, with a small squib of magic power, his form dissolved within a shooting star.

He hurtled straight up into the sky, now a blur of gold trailing stardust.

The members of Lamia stared after him in awe and Wendy waved as the star ferrying Cole home vanished over the horizon.

"Well?" Wendy asked.

"I wanna try!" Toby shouted, placing his thumb over the indentation and launching a burst of his magic power into it.

"WA-HOO!" He screamed as he was incased in his own shooting star and blasted away after Cole.

"Let's go, Chelia!" Sherry said, taking her cousins hand as the two of them pushed a burst of power into their own sphere's.

They both took off as Yuka, too, activated his sphere.

With a skeptical glance down at his own object of flight, Lyon gave the sphere a taste of ice magic.

"Whoa!"

He couldn't help but yell an electric buzzing sensation spread through his limbs and warmed his chest.

The ice mage was suddenly glowing gold and rocketing off into the sky.

"Mr. Neekis?" Wendy said, smiling.  
Jura shook his head as he launched a bout of his own power into his sphere, Wendy doing the same.

"This is one ridiculous guild." He managed to say before he was air born.

They all soon caught up with the others and together, in what appeared to be a flock of shooting stars, they flew over the ever-changing lands of Fiore.

Lyon could barely even see the landscape passing by beneath them, all he saw was the colors of the city he'd come to call home changing to the colors of the forest. A forest he'd seen once before, a long, long time ago.

Green's and brown's and bright bursts of flowery shades swam before the ice mages eyes as they began to descend.

They all landed and most of the Lamia's, save Jura, wizard's wound up on their backsides.

"Whoa..." Cheila murmured as her head wove around and around in a circle.

"THAT WAS AWESOME!" Toby declared.

"I have to agree." Yuka said, rubbing his head.

"Wendy, you do it."

"Why me!?"

"You know them better."

"Only Cheila and Sherry!"

"Well one of us has to do it."

"Well than you do it!"

"No!"

"Please...?"

"No! No! No! You do it!"

All of the members of Lamia Scale turned to see Wendy and Cole arguing about who had to do something.

Wendy frowned, pouting as crossing her arms.

"Fine." She grumbled.

"I'll do it."

Wendy turned to the members of Lamia Scale and, while mentally complaining about such a weird way to invite someone in, bowed from the waist and said deliberately.

"I formally invite you to visit my guild hall."

"See, that wasn't so bad." Cole teased.

Wendy shot him a sour look and spoke quickly. "We have a major defense spell that keeps anyone who's not a member out unless we 'formally invite them in', the bow is what activates the spell, so now you guys can get through the force barrier."

"Wait...I know this forest." Lyon murmured, looking around at the gnarled old trees.

For all he knew, these were the same ones he'd shot through, pounding across the mammoth roots, on a magi-cycle with Gray.

"This is the West Woodsy!" Sherry exclaimed.

"We have a winner! Draconem Heart, proudly located in the creepiest forest in the world." Cole said sarcastically.

Wendy giggled, "I think it's beautiful. I love taking walks out under the canopy, it's so relaxing."

"Unless you run into a forest vulcan." Cole said.

"Whatever! C'mon, c'mon, I wanna see the guild hall!" Cheila cried, seizing Wendy's hand and hopping up and down, waiting to have a direction pointed out to run in.

"Ok, ok, this way!" Wendy laughed, picking up speed and passing by Cheila, holding her pink haired friend's hand and pulling her along.

They watched as the two disappeared beyond the barrier and through the trees.

The other's, with Cole in the lead, followed, and after a short amount of mad dashing through the forest, they arrived at the cobbled path.

Up ahead, the sound of Cheila crying out in wonder reached their ears.

The other members of Lamia quickly pushed through the remaining trees blocking their path, and found themselves staring up at the banner of Draconem Heart, the name of the guild twisted into the metal of the archway, and the ancient fortress of stone soaring above, a flag fluttering gracefully from each of the twelve turrets.

"Astounding." Yuka murmured.

The castle of Draconem Heart towered six stories above their heads atop the grassy hill. The calm waters of the lake rippling slightly as the breeze crossed it, on one of the turrets, a joyous Charles was leaping up and down before jumping and swooping across the moat, weaving around the chains of the drawbridge to Wendy's side once again.

"Oh, child, I was worried about you!" The white cat sobbed, clinging to Wendy's jacket sleeve.

"I was fine! It was no big deal, we were perfectly safe!" Wendy consoled the exceed.

Lyon swallowed once and managed to find his voice.

"This is your guild hall?"

"Sure is, welcome to Draconem Castle." Cole said smugly, secretly enjoying how shocked they were.

"This is a castle." Yuka said in amazement.

"Yes." The Draconem's said, wasn't that obvious?

"The castle is your guild hall?" Sherry tried.

"Yes." The three members said as one, they could see where this was heading.

"All of the castle?" Toby asked in wonder.

"Yes!"

"Why do you think everyone thinks only half of the castle is our hall or something?" Cole asked Wendy.

"I have no clue! What, is there just some giant wall through half the castle that we can't pass?" Wendy pondered

"Humans can be quite foolish." Charles said wisely.

"Agreed." The other two droned.

"Well, c'mon, let's go inside!" Wendy sang, happy to finally show Cheila the place that had become her home.

"How?" Toby asked stupidly as they headed up the cobbled path.

Cole rolled his eyes, "By asked for the drawbridge to be sent down, genius."

"Oh, I thought we were gonna go swim!" The dog like man said, pointing a clawed finger at the water.

"Oh, you really shouldn't..." Wendy began her warning but was cut off by Yuka.

"Go ahead if you want to, I'm certainly not getting wet."

"Ok!"

Naturally, Toby took Yuka seriously and dove into the water.

"No, don't!" Cole shouted but it wasn't in time, Toby splashed down into the moat.

Only to be electrified by the powerful lacrima submerged below.

"Ugh..." He moaned as he landed back on dry land, dripping wet with his hair frazzled all directions.

"We warned you." Charles said in an 'I told you so but you wouldn't listen' type of voice.

"Can we go in yet?"

"Sure! Back up!" Came a voice from one of the towers located directly next to the drawbridge.

Wendy pulled Cheila back as the chains rattled and the giant three foot thick bridge came clattering down.

It hit the ground with a vibration that made the wizard's jump.

"Hurry, let's head inside and go to the dragon's hangout. We can wait for the other guild's there, and I suppose since your here anyway we can show you around." Wendy was very excited to have some people from her life outside the castle walls entering the sanctum so long barred to those beyond.

"This is quite impressive." Jura admitted as they entered the castle, taking in the dragon carvings, black wood flooring and long, decorated, hallway's of stone.

Right around the first corner they came across a portrait of Kylie. "What's up with that?" Sherry questioned, taking in the picture of the confident looking little ginger haired girl.

"That's how our S-class ranks work, there's a portrait of every single member of the guild somewhere in the hall. The hangout serves as the main hall, it's got the bar, the request board, the food and drink. Everyone goes in there at least three times a day, if not more. The farther from the hangout you are, the farther you are from S-class. Kylie recently got her guild mark, so we hung her picture back here, so she could get started on working her way into S-class. Master Dracoya moves your portrait forward or backwards as she deems fit, trading you out with another person in the guild. If someone goes up, they switch with someone, who than goes down. If your portrait is in the hangout, your elite, if your portrait is hung behind the bar, where four are hung right now, your S-class. Master Dracoya hates for things to be boring, so a simple list in a book wasn't good enough for her, so she came up with this."

"That's interesting." Yuka said as they continued down the hallway.

"You made it!"

Onyx came running up from the tower that contained the lowering and raising mechanism for the drawbridge.

"Hello, your another member of this guild, I take it?" Jura asked.

"Yes, sir. My name's Onyx, I'm the rock dragonslayer." The teen introduced himself.

Wendy and Cole had already been dragged off by Cheila, Cole just barely avoiding her grabbing his hand as well. Unfortunately for the Transfer mage, the cape of his poncho was vulnerable, and Cheila had grabbed that inside. The godslayer had than skipped off with a joyous Wendy who was ready to give a tour, and a sputtering Cole, who had no idea why he was getting dragged into this mess.

Lyon and the others followed Onyx to the dragon's hangout, where they were all dumbstruck by the sheer _amount_ of wizards.

"You've got quite a few members, don't you?" Sherry asked interestedly.

Onyx shrugged, "Is two hundred a lot?" He asked, mocking ignorance.

Jura exhaled at the thought of so many lost mages, even more so at the thought of battling at their sides.

"Yes, it is, it is quite a lot."

Onyx grinned, and all of the Lamia's sweat dropped at the sight of his fanged canines, a result of his dragonslayer powers

"Well, I hope you'll enjoy your stay, welcome to Draconem Heart."

* * *

Meanwhile, in Clover Town

* * *

Rina stared, a horrified look plastered across her face, her crystal blue eyes wide and terror filled as Meredy walked up behind her, dragged both of their duffel bags up the walk, feet skittering on the ground as she pulled at the suitcases.

Rina slid her gaze first down at the sparkly tiles leading up to the guild hall, than up to the pink guild hall that looked like it had a disco ball for a roof.

The girl with the fur lined hood wearily scanned the sign.

'Blue Pegasus'

The ice godslayer's shoulder's drooped as she lost all hope of this being the wrong guild hall. With a heavy sigh, she dutifully began to make her way up the sparkle tile road.

"Why me?"

Meredy had than caught a look at the guild hall, which looked like a unicorn had designed it, and shook her head slowly.

"Rephrase that, why us?"

* * *

 ** _Well who else would the Master send to get the Trimen? I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please favorite, please follow, please review!_**


	16. To bring the Fairy's

**_Well, we're at Blue Pegasus with Meredy and Rina, this ought to be fun considering the Trimen just left the castle last week. :D Fun! Here we go!_**

* * *

Eve, Hibiki, and Ren were the only people at the guild at the moment, their master and Ichiyia were both upstairs in the office, discussing one thing or another, Jenny was shopping, and it seemed like the rest of the guild was off that day on missions.

"I swear, I'll never set foot in that castle again so long as I live!" Ren exclaimed, now that they were alone, they were able to speak freely about their escapades at Draconem Heart.

"Agreed. It was insane, and those stairs were unusually long. Getting pushed down unusually long stairs is no fun." Eve said, nodding.

Hibiki was spacing out.

"Um...earth land to Hibiki? Hibiki Lates, this is Blue Pegasus attempting to make contact!" Ren teased as Eve snapped his fingers in front of the archive mages face.

Hibiki started and blinked a few times, clearing his unfocused eyes.

"Oh. Sorry...I was just thinking." Hibiki murmured, already he was planning the date he was to have with Meredy. He'd go on a solo job just to get enough money to book the best and fanciest restaurant in the town. After that they'd walk down to the park that was by the canyon, the beauty of that place at night was beyond compare.

 _Only thing more gorgeous than the canyon's crystal rocks sparkling in the moonlight is her...her emerald green eyes, her porcelain skin, so soft and smooth..._

"HIBIKI!"

The lovestruck man was startled out of his daydreams yet again by his wind mage friend.  
"Sorry, I'm planning." Hibiki said quickly as the two other Trimen shot them strange looks.

"What's this big 'plan', you going somewhere?" Ren demanded, raising his eyebrows.

"Well, I, no, I, see-I...have a date."

Hibiki admitted finally, he hadn't told Eve and Ren about his time atop the tower with Meredy, but the amount of times he'd been caught spacing out over her were stacking up.

"Really? Who is it this time? Jenny?" Eve asked.

Hibiki gulped, "See...a little while after the Grand Magic Games...we decided, together that is, that we're better off as close friends, and nothing more."

"Really?" Ren asked, shocked.

Eve's eyes were wide.

"You ok, then?"

Hibiki shrugged, "We'd been more of friends than lovers for a while, more than six months before we decided to call it quits. Than...I met her again."

"Who's this her? Do we know her?"

Hibiki considered this, "You may not remember her by name."

He replied.

"Well, tell us!" Ren ordered, standing up and putting both palms on the table.

Eve looked at Hibiki with a wide, deceivingly innocent expression.

"Yeah, we won't tell anyone if you don't want us to."

Hibiki sighed.

"Alright, alright...it's Mer..."  
That was when the door was kicked wide open, both sides of the glitzy double doored portal slamming into the side walls.

"MEREDY!?" Hibiki exclaimed in astonishment as Meredy entered the guildhall.

With a furious looking Rina right in front of her.  
"Seriously, Snowy, this guild hall looks like a freaking unicorn threw up all over it. I swear, after this whole damn Shadowlogia thing is over I'm coming back here and redesigning the whole place!" The ice godslayer declared as the stormed into the hall.

"Rina! What the heck are you doing here? N-Not that I'm mad, but I thought we agreed I'd call you later this..."

She walked over the table and promptly seized Eve by the hand.  
"Thought we agreed not to talk about that in front of other sentient beings. Now come on."

She turned and stormed right back out of the guild, this time with a sputtering, weakly protesting Eve tripping along behind her, being dragged along by the hand.

"Um..." Ren and Hibiki both stared after their kidnapped guild mate in confusion.

"Dragon attack. Your in danger. Come with us." Meredy summed it all up in three less than helpful explanations.

She turned to leave again and Hibiki instantly stood to follow.

Ren stared after than for a moment before letting out very, very drawn out sigh.

"Looks like we're going to the castle again."

* * *

Meanwhile, in Magnolia

* * *

The crowds gave the two imposing figures a wide berth, all recognizing them for when they'd strode these streets before, in a different time.

All of the people were studying their hate and worry creased faces, worry for some, hate for others, all of the subjects of these feelings found in the large building they were now staring up at.

One pushed up his brown headband and let out a breath.  
"Been a while, huh?"  
The other gripped his scarf tightly.

"Wish it could have been longer." Was his reply.

Finally, they stepped forward as one and kicked the large double doors of the Fairy Tail guild hall wide open.

Shocked and amazed faces stared out from very angle, all horrified at the two standing in the doorway.

Finally, one daring girl broke the silence.

"Natsu!"

The blonde celestial mage, Lucy Heartfilla, of course, leapt from her chair with the other members of what was formerly team Natsu, and wove her way past her frozen guild mates, flinging her arms around his neck.

Another unexpected form came flying suddenly from the side of the hall.

Book dropping to the floor behind her, Levy tackled Gajeel so hard Gajeel had to seize her around the waist and spin several times on his heel to keep his balance.  
"Shrimp!" He choked out.

"Gajeel! I'm soooo glad to see you!" She shrieked gleefully.

"Uh...good ta see ya too, shrimp." Gajeel grumbled.  
"Why are you here, guys?" Lucy questioned as several of the members who had nothing to fear from the dragonslayers, Cana, Romeo, and Mira, stepped up to them.

"As much as I wish we could have a touching reunion and all, bunny girl, we gotta move, pronto." Gajeel explained as he set Levy on the ground.  
"Why?" Erza had arrived, standing suspiciously before her two former guild mates with Gray behind her.

Natsu rolled his eyes.

"Oh, your gonna loooooove this one."

Taking turned patching over each other and correcting each other, the two Draconem Heart members explained their reason for returning.

"So thats it. Shadowlogia's making a come back and we're here to save your sorry asses from becoming dragon chow."

Gajeel growled.

"We're really only here for Lucy, Cana, Mira, and Levy. You and icy prick could go to hell for all we care, but since we gotta follow Master's orders, looks like you get to come along too."

Natsu sighed.

"Ok...where do you wish for us to go?" Erza questioned, ignoring the sharp jabs of insults within each of the two's statements.

"Best place on earth to weather out a dragon storm, Draconem Heart guild hall itself."

"Wow! Really?" Romeo exclaimed in awe.

"Yup, but you ain't coming, pipsqueak."

Gajeel said with a light teasing tone in his voice to the younger mage.

"Aw, why not? I want to help you guys fight the dragon!" Romeo protested.

"A.K.A, he misses Wendy."

Lucy whispered into Natsu's ear.

A reckless grin spread across Natsu's face.  
"I really don't see why the kid can't come along!" He said, just because he wished to be a troublemaker. He also wanted to bring Romeo along because, whether she'd admit it or not, Wendy was missing her old friend, only old friend her age, and he wanted them to see each other again.  
"YES!" Romeo cheered, jumping up and pumping his fist.

"Wait a second, I just have..." Macao stepped up to protest back Romeo had already bolted towards the stairs to retrieve his backpack, same as the other trusting members of the group.

Erza and Gray eyed the dragonslayers warily when Master Makorov stepped up.

"I...do not think you would lie about a thing such as the tale you have just woven for us. So I give you leave to go, Erza, Gray." He spoke gravely.

Not exactly wanting to, but having no other choice, Erza and Gray went to collect their baggage, already both curious and fearful of what they would face when they arrived at the mysterious guild hall of Draconem Heart.

* * *

 ** _I am so sorry that took me forever! I was working on another project and than there's that ever distracting thing called life and so...excuses excuses excuses there now I feel better._**

 ** _Anyway, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	17. Stowaway

**_Ok, here it comes, the part you've been waiting for, it's Fairy Tail arriving at Draconem Heart!_**

* * *

They, meaning Gajeel, Natsu, Romeo, Mira, Cana, Lucy, Levy, Erza, Gray, and Juvia, had just landed from Magnolia a few yards from the castle, and now Gajeel and Natsu were practically in a fist fight over something beyond the Fairy Tail mages.  
"When did that happen?" Lucy questioned Levy.  
"Dunno, why do you think they're yelling?" Levy shot back.  
Erza wanted to break them up with her intimidation factor, as was her nature, but she knew she could not use that on these slayers anymore.

"You do it, flame brain! You've known'em longer!"

"Exactly why I shouldn't do it!"

After a solid ten minutes of watching the two of them brawling, an unexpected figure emerged from the forests.

"You two..."

Gajeel and Natsu froze at the approaching voice.

Layla crossed her arms and glared at them.  
"What the heck is wrong with your heads?" She demanded.

"I won't do the invite!"

"Well I certainly ain't doing it!"

Layla groaned.

"Fine, than _I'll_ do it."

Layla stalked forward than bowed from the waist.

"I formally invite you to visit my guild hall. There, that isn't so difficult now is it, you two?"

Gajeel and Natsu, just happy it was over with, led the way back toward the now visible cobbled path.  
Lucy felt a flutter in her chest as she realized she was about to yet again see the castle that had drifted through her dreams the past six months after her brief visit so long ago. She recalled the feeling of family, of bonds so powerful nothing could shatter them. It saddened her to think that Fairy Tail, the guild she set foot in every single day, used to feel like that, felt like that when Natsu had door kicked and screamed his greeting to the place that, all that time ago, had held his very heart.  
"Welcome..." Natsu began, grinning from ear to ear at the thought of impressing the others with his hall.

Gajeel was equally eager, glancing smugly back at Levy every few moments.

"...to the Draconem Heart guild." Natsu gestured up grandly as they broke through the foliage and were instantly basked in the shadow of the storybook castle atop the grassy hill.

"Holy..." Cana's jaw went slack as Levy shook her head dumbly.

"It's a freaking castle." Gray murmured.

"This is incredible..." Mira agreed.

Erza felt the breath leave her chest for a moment, seeing the gorgeous, times old fortress that had survived many battles, seen many warriors fall, and many more rise up against odds that seemed unmatchable.

Despite knowing in the back of her mind that this place hated her and held a powerful band of wizards numbers in the hundreds that were all itching for a war on Fairy Tail, she felt strangely at peace, this place had pulled through so many battles, it seemed that even a dragon attack could not penetrate the thick stone walls. Erza was snapped from her stupor by the sound of her companions and guild mates voices.

"This is a castle." Cana repeated.

Gajeel, Layla, and Natsu eyed each other, they knew what was coming.

"Is your castle the guild hall?" Juvia questioned.

"Yes." All of the three said as one.

"All of the..." Romeo began to speak.  
"YES. All of the castle is our guild hall, the entire castle is used. We use all of it. It's full. Occupied. Inhabited. At capacity. Not half of it, all of it." Layla clarified.

Why was it that no one could understand that the whole castle was the guild hall? Was is that difficult to wrap your head around?

"So...let's go." Natsu marched smartly up the cobbled path toward the drawbridge, which was currently lowered to the ground.

"Ok."

Everyone, with a less than enthusiastic Gray and Erza in tow, headed up toward the drawbridge.

"Sup! We made it back alive!"

Natsu screamed as he door kicked.

Lucy smiled in spite of herself, there was that same shout, that same way of slamming the doors open and announcing the fire dragonslayers presence, loud and clear.

"You didn't burn down anything, did you?" Several people in the crowded hall asked in unison.  
"Nope." Natsu replied, scowling,

"You guys think I screw up everything, don't you!?"

"Yes."

"Do you have any faith in me at all when it comes to not breaking things?"

"No."

"But your totally fine with sending me when our reputations are on the line, just because I'm good at breaking stuff?"

"Yes."

"You all suck, you know that?"

Natsu grumbled as he plopped down into a chair.

"Natsu-nii!"

Kylie came skipping out of the crowd and pounced on Natsu's chest.

The pink haired slayer laughed and hugged her.

"You doing good, speedster?"

"Yep!" She sang happily.

That was when a muffled sneeze came from inside Cana's duffle bag.

"What the?" Cana said suspiciously as she dropped the bag to the ground.

Everyone quickly created a circle around the bag, eyes narrowing and hands fisting, all prepping themselves for battle.

Slowly, carefully, Cana crept forward, crouched low with her cards in one hand, she reached out and, in one swift, fluid motion, unzipped the bag and leapt back as if she'd just primed a bomb to explode.

There was some wriggling from within, than out popped a head of mussed up black hair with one of Cana's tops on it.

"Hey!" Cana seized the garment and ripped it off, revealing the stowaway.

Kylie raced forward.

"Asuka!" She cheered.

"Kylie!"

The two girls embraced each other, each were still wearing their lucky bracelets, made from Jenny's bikini top strap, and were overjoyed to see one another.

"Asuka what the heck are you doing in there!?" Levy demanded as she pulled the young girl from the bag.

"I wanted to see Natsu-nii really really bad! So I jumped in Cana's bag when she wasn't looking!"

Asuka exclaimed, puffing out her tiny chest pridefully as she fished around in the bag, eventually pulling out her gun belt, that had Natsu's final gift, a magic pistol, and it's ammo producing pouch on it, and her cowboy hat, which she placed on her head.

"Dear god, your parents are gonna freak!" Cana groaned, slapping herself in the forehead.

"How did I not notice how much heavier my bag was?" She scolded herself.

Erza shook her head, armor clanking with the motion.

"Whats done is done, we'll just have to take care of her." She sighed.

Asuka grinned, "I get to say!" She cried happily.

As the adults turned to each other in conversation, Asuka spotted Natsu sitting with a laid back expression, waving his arm and shouting at someone.

She dodged between the wizards's legs and dove at Natsu.

"Natsu-nii!" She hurled herself into his chest and clutched at his scarf.

"Asuka! You crazy cowgirl, what were you thinking, sneaking into Cana's bag?"

He laughed, "That sounds like something I'd do, not you!"

Natsu wrapped his muscled arms around the little girl and grinned widely when she stared up at him.

"Good to see you." He said happily.

Asuka sniffled slightly before a brilliant smile shone through.

"I missed you, Natsu-nii! I missed you!"

* * *

At the Sabertooth guild hall.

* * *

The door creaked open and five pairs of curious eyes glanced up from their books or each other. The five wizards went slack jawed when they realized who stood on their threshold.

Sting and Rogue stood there, side by side, worry creased their features and sorrow plagued their eyes.

"Sting...Rogue..." Minerva growled, making to stand when Yukino reached over and put a firm hand over the territory mages own.

"Don't." Was all the celestial mage said.

Rufus instantly felt a suffocating fear crushing down upon his chest.

Rogue, the man who'd saved his life only to then attempt to end it, the one he'd forgiven only to find himself beaten down, pain stricken on his knees yet again.

Yet, at the same time, he felt a sort of relief, he'd been concealing his worry for the shadow slayer, as much has he hated to admit it, the man had been one of his closest friends.

In his well honed, intelligent mind, the struggle resumed, to risk forgiving Rogue yet again despite what had happened last time, hold himself aloof behind his mask, or collapse beneath the terrifying, swelling, building, all consuming fear that was rising up in another attempt to break him.

No one could tell of this conflict, looking at Rufus, all they saw was him staring cooly out from behind his mask of indifference.

Sting took a breath, a step so that only one footfall more would carry him within the guild hall he'd once called his own, and spoke.

"You need to come with us, to Draconem Heart."

 ** _I tried to build that up as best I could, hopefully the aftermath of this will satisfy all of you! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	18. Bringing in the Saber's

**_Sting and Rogue are at Sabertooth to bring their old team to Draconem Heart, will they be able to convince them?_**

* * *

"Why should we trust you!? After all you've done?" Minerva questioned.

Sting sighed, "We left because we needed help, Minerva! We needed to find a way to control our powers before we hurt someone!"

"You already did." Orga growled as Rufus focused pointedly on his book, blocking out the entire conversation.

"Please, just hear us out." Sting begged.  
"Go." Minerva ordered.

They went, they spoke of the dragon attack and the impended disaster if the Sabertooth wizards didn't come with them.

Minerva sniggered, "You expect us to believe that?" She asked.

"Seriously? Are you gonna wait until Shadowlogia is pounding the city into the ground? Innocents are at risk here!" Sting yelled.

Yukino looked on, her eyes expressing her emotions for her.

"Minerva, what can it hurt? If this is a false alarm we just come home, if this is the truth than we save the city from disaster." Yukino whispered to the territory mage, despite everything the two of them had become rather close friends and it was well known that Minerva was now fiercely protective of her.

Minerva scowled and crossed her arms, glaring at the ground before throwing an arm out to her side.

Swirling territory surrounded her hand and Sting and Rogue didn't even back down.

She glared at them, and they didn't even raised their arms to attempt to cast a spell in defense.

 _They aren't defending themselves, if Minerva were to attack all out right now she'd kill them!_

Rufus thought in shock, of course, none could see this, he still peered out cooly from behind his theatrical mask.

Minerva narrowed her eyes and let out a sigh before reaching into her portal and drawing out her duffel bag, it was blue and navy to match her dress.

She slung it over her shoulder and gripped the strap while saying in a dangerous tone.  
"Well? Let's get on with it. Sooner I see proof of this dragon sooner I stop wanting to kill you."

Sting raised his hands up to shoulder height and backed up slightly as Minerva stalked out of the hall, spun on her heel, put a hand on her hip, and raised her eyebrows at them.

"Let's get on with it."

Yukino stood and hurried out the door behind her, she had baggage stored in the celestial world and didn't need to pack.

Rufus stood and walked out behind them, Rogue felt the urge to say or do something, say hello, give a nod or tilt of the head in greeting.

When Rufus gave him a wide berth as he passed, performing a sudden quick step when he realized how close to Rogue he was coming and choosing to exit by moving around Sting, putting the white dragonslayer between himself and the shadow mage.

Rogue knew Rufus had every right to be afraid, twice now he'd nearly killed the blonde mage, he'd caused him unimaginable pain and he knew Rufus now had many scars on him bearing none but Rogue's name.

Rufus didn't show his fear, he didn't show anything, kept his head down into his book and didn't say a word, didn't give a single movement or sound of acknowledgement. If someone had been looking at Rufus and no other, they would have assumed Rufus was leaving alone, on his terms, with no companions whatsoever.

Orga followed crossing his arms.

"Where's Dobengali?" Sting asked.

"On a quest, no way we could catch up to him."  
Sting considered it and Rogue spoke up for the first time since their arrival, hating the way he caught Rufus tensing ever so slightly when his deep, quite voice filled the air.

"It should work. He was the weakest member of the team and Shadowlogia wouldn't pursue him half way across the continent, it would come after you all, it wouldn't go so far out of it's way just for one." Rogue stated, sounding confident.

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

Sting glanced at Rogue, who reached into his cloak and produced the transport sphere's of Master Dracoya's creation, handing them out.

"Let's move."

* * *

In the clearing outside Draconem Heart's protective spell barrier

* * *

"Here we are!" Sting declared as Yukino wobbled around dizzily, she'd been disoriented by the flight.

Sting let out a (rather manly) yelp when she staggered into his chest.

"You ok?" He asked when she'd settled herself, leaning against him as he held her shoulders.

"Ahem, lovebirds? As much as we'd love to watch to two stutter and mumble until you end up making out, I kinda want to go!"

Orga said loudly, uncrossing his arms to brandish them to his sides.  
Both of them blushed a brilliant scarlet.  
"H-Hey!" They both shouted together.

Rogue had been smart and taken advantage of everyone looking the other way to bow and whisper the words necessary to allow them to cross the barrier, thankful no one had noticed it.

"We can go." Rogue said, again noticing how Rufus wouldn't meet his gaze or turn his back on him.

Accepting this, Rogue went first, leading the way up the cobbled path toward the castle.

"Welcome to Draconem Heart!" Sting exclaimed, flinging his arms out as the Sabertooth wizards stared up at the imposing castle.

"This is..." Yukino began in awe.  
"...a castle, yes." Sting finished for her.

"Is..."

"The whole guild is the castle, all of the castle is the guild, not half, all, so no need to finish." Sting cut her off, seriously, what was so hard to believe about the guild being the whole castle?

Rufus was committing the beautiful place to memory, eyes wide behind his mask as he touched his fingers to the brim of his hat.

"Impressive." Was all Minerva would admit.

"Pretty nice digs, can see why you ditched an apartment in our sea side spot for this."

"Not for those reasons, Orga, we needed help with our magic, and this was the best place to come." Sting grumbled.

Orga laughed and slapped Sting on the shoulder hard enough to make the smaller man stumble.

"But our guild's still number one! Not your messed up fairy tale hide out in the woods!"

Sting ground his teeth in annoyance as he led the way up the cobbled walk and across the drawbridge, they stopped about halfway across the wooden entryway before Orga spoke yet again.

"This place had better had some good grub, I'm starved!"

Sting grinned slyly.  
"Say, can you eat lightning?"  
Orga scowled, "Idiot, you know I can't!"

"Oh, really? Why not give it another try?"

Sting moved suddenly, giving the irritating godslayer a shove on the shoulder and sending him tumbling into the electric moat.

"GEEEEEYYYAAA!"  
The green haired man came hurtling back out, hair looking as though he'd gotten a quick trim from Cancer, bursting into a frizzy afro.

"Even though I'm not as badly effected by lightning mage, that was still harsh, man."

The dripping wet godslayer groaned as Sting cackled madly, pointing his finger at Orga.

"That was hilarious! Your hair is like two feet tall! Ha!"

Sting chuckled as his laughter subsided.

Rogue, not looking at all amused or even really concerned with any of what had just transpired, continued into the castle.

Rufus allowed his eyes and mind to absorb every last detail, memorizing the passages, the portraits on the wall, knowing very well this was the stronghold from which they would be, supposedly, but fighting a dragon.

"So, where's your...umm..." Yukino faltered with her question.

"Main area?" Sting tried.

"Yeah, that."

"We call it the Dragon's hangout. It's down this way."

Rogue was already ahead of the group, hoping the slip away within his guild mates, exit the hangout from the upstairs area, and make it to one of the tower sitting rooms, the perfect place to both watch for the dragon, wait on the mental prompt from another Draconem mage, and, most importantly, keep distance from the other Sabertooth mages.

They arrived and Rogue was grateful for the flood of members that instantly enveloped them, surrounded by them all, Rogue's dark side all but vanished, like smoke after the fire had been doused.

To his great surprise, Sting reached out and grabbed his wrist, tugging for the tiniest instant before releasing him again and sliding between his guild mates, away from the Sabers that were currently being welcomed, introduced, and pulled into the center of the hall.

Rogue, raising his eyebrows slightly in curiosity, but still eager to leave his former team and guild mates behind, chased after the white slayer as he led the way up the stairs and out the door located to the side of the bar.

"What's wrong?" Rogue asked as he took a few faster steps to catch up too his best friend.

Sting sighed and brushed a hand through his blonde locks.

"God, I don't really know. I thought it would be good to see them all, but...the way they were looking at me, at us, those offhanded comments from Orga about how 'he could see us leaving Sabertooth for a castle' it's like their trying to guilt us into coming home. Do they not understand we miss Sabertooth too? But even now we don't have our magic under control. We couldn't leave even if we did, it's just, safer for people like us to be in a place like this. I just wish they would support us more, we're supposed to be friends, right?"

Rogue listened to his what was leaving his happy-go-lucky partner so disturbed and sighed.  
"I understand, Sting. You understand me. I guess we're gonna have to settle for that."

Sting let out a soft chuckle at the thought.

"Guess so, Rogue."

Sting crossed his arms and leaned back to stair up at the ceiling, allowing his eyes to wander along the mortar lines.

"I guess so."

* * *

 ** _Well, I gave you a bit of a bestie's moment between Sting and Rogue, there, hope you liked it! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	19. The Young Rivalry

**_Ok, this is probably the last chapter before we begin the whole, 'oh sweet Mavis a dragon it's freaking gigantic and nightmarish and stuff we're all gonna die' part. Also, a new OC will be appearing, she was suggested to me by another author named Warrant-for-Arrest. She was supposed to be working on a one-shot that involved Draconem Heart, but I'm not sure if she's finished it yet, if she does, it's to be called 'Thorn Road' if you'd like to read it! Now, please enjoy!_**

* * *

Sting and Rogue arrived at the very back tower, farthest from the Dragon's hangout. Without a single word, they entered, walking up the spiral stairs and climbing the ladder into the cozy sitting room.

They couldn't have imagined a more unexpected sight.

Gajeel's cold steely eyes gazed lazily over to them before he blew out a breath between his pointed teeth.

"Oh, great, now we're a complete set."

"Don't act like you were expecting us to bail out!" Sting snapped as he entered the room and collapsed into the armchair next to Laxus's.

"But I did." Gajeel said, sprawled in his own armchair, he raised a gloved hand and waved it nonchalantly at the white dragonslayer.

Laxus was sitting, legs up on the coffee table and crossed, arms crossed, listening to his sound pod. He still opened one eye to see who'd settled next to him before closing it again.

"Well, who wants to make up a club name? This could be our meeting room, we all run here when we want to hide. Orchid even grew a freaking garden on the roof."

Onyx was lying on the carpeted floor, legs kicked up against the wall, he was looking up at all of the other's upside-down. The room was circular, large enough for ten to sit, the rest were on the heavily carpeted ground. The carpet was a rich red with gold vine prints across it, the velvet, over stuffed furniture mirrored this, with dark wood feet and armrest and soft, red and gold surfaces.

Their was a large coffee table in the center of the room, same dark wood and carved feet.

There were two sets of armchairs with small end tables in between them to either side of the room, two long couches were separating them, all surrounding the center table.

"Oh, great, dragonslayer's assemble." Misty was lying on the floor, just a little bit past Onyx's head.

"Y-Y-You know, it's kinda nice we're all together."

Orchid pointed out softly, she was seated beside Cobra in the middle of the couch, Cobra to the left end, leaning on the armrest, looking bored.

Rogue raised an eyebrow at Cobra, silently asking his question.

Cobra rolled his eyes and returned to staring at the doused fireplace.

"Do you think I wanna be stuck in a room with Titania or any of those other Fairy's?"

"I take offense to that even though I'm not a fairy anymore!"

Natsu exclaimed, pointing straight up, he, too, was lying flat on his back on the floor to the opposite side of the table from Misty and Onyx.

Rogue settled onto the other couch, Wendy was sitting to the other side of the couch, knees pulled up to her chest, she had changed to her black pleated skirt and red long sleeved jacket with the black accents.

"Wait, why are you three here?"

Sting asked, pointing to Onyx, Misty, and Orchid.

"Orchid followed Cobra, Misty followed Orchid, and I followed Misty."

Onyx said bluntly.

"Ok then..." Sting said, shrugging.

They all sat there in comfortable silence for a few minutes before their enhanced hearing picked up voices on the stairs below.

Moving quickly, not wanting to be discovered in their secret sanctuary that hid them from the visiting wizards, Wendy rolled off of the couch, crawled across the floor, causing her high blue socks to wrinkle, and slid the bolt that locked the tower hatch home.

Not even a second later the door rattled, someone had climbed the ladder and was pushing up on the hatch.

"I thought you said you saw Gajeel go up her, Levy-nee!" Romeo exclaimed, Gajeel frowned when he realized he'd been spotted in his escape.

"I swear I did, but maybe I was wrong about the last hallway." Levy murmured.

Wendy's eyes were wide, was she hearing right? Because if she was hearing right, the voice of the one pushing on the hatch was very familiar.

She glanced back at the others, who all gave her a silent 'ok' nod.

Waiting until she'd heard him descend back to the floor from the ladder, Wendy unlocked and opened the hatch, slipping out onto the ladder and shutting it behind her before any of the others could be seen.

"Wendy!" Romeo cried as Wendy began her descent.

Wendy pretended to look surprised.

"Romeo! What are you doing here?"

She asked as she slid down the ladder's side rungs and dropped down onto the floor.

"I...well...I really wanted to...help fight the dragon! Thats it, dragon..."

Romeo stuttered, Levy, standing behind him, waved to gain Wendy's attention and mouthed.

'He misses you' to her.

Wendy smiled at the boy in front of her.

"So it's not because you missed me?" She asked, pretending to sound disappointed.

"No! Of course I missed you! Really, I did, Fairy Tail just isn't the same without you guys!" Romeo exclaimed quickly.

Wendy suddenly wrapped her arms around Romeo and hugged him.

"I missed you too."

Romeo was as red as Natsu's flames as he hugged her back.

"So, what's up there?"

Wendy really didn't want their refuge to be revealed, even though it wasn't official that they all always gathered there, it was becoming a trend.  
"Oh nothing, just a little nook I hang out in sometimes, I really was just trying to get a bit of space, honestly, I don't come up here all to often."

She said as she walked down the stairs, taking a few running steps to jump on Levy in a hug.

"I missed you, Levy!" She sang, spinning the bluenette in a circle before skipping off down the stairs.

"C'mon, Romeo, you too! I want to show you around!"

Levy's matchmaker instincts kicked in.

"Oh, I'm going to head back to the Dragon's hangout place and look for Gajeel there, you guys go ahead, have fun!" She said as they reached the bottom of the spiral stairs, Levy moving off toward the hangout, orange dress swaying in time with her hips.

Wendy was actually quite happy about this.

"C'mon, I'll introduce you too some of my friends here!" She exclaimed, dragging Romeo off by the hand, heading for the courtyard.

"Chameleon!"

"Will you please stop that?"

"But you are!"

"I am not in any way related to a lizard!"

"Sure...Chameleon!"

"Why are you even here if all your doing is insulting me?"

A girl with bright orange hair cropped messily about her head, so short it just barely covered the nape of her neck and the bangs hung haphazardly in her round deep brown eyes. She was wearing a black and yellow jacket with the top right half of the jacket up to the zipper being black, the other half being yellow, and vice versa across the bottom half. She wore worn old dark colored jeans with holes beginning to form on the skidded out knees.

She was dancing around the bench Cole was sitting on, the two of them were out in the courtyard and Wendy had just tugged Romeo through the large double doors outside.

The girl was currently practicing cartwheels and dive rolls, stopping only to tease Cole about his color changing.

"Jack, stop it! He can't help changing color!" Wendy instantly leapt to Cole's defense, and the boy looked rather relieved the youngest dragonslayer had arrived.

"Sure Marvell, like your puny wind blasts will do anything!"

"Yeah?"

"Sure! You'd be down and out if you got stung by a bumblebee! Weakling Cloud Girl!"

"It's Sky Maiden!"

"Tomboy, I don't know where you picked up that nick name, but I think that the Scarlet Rose is a bit more professional."

"Tomboy!? Sure, like you can talk, your hairs so short and messy, everyone thought you were a boy when you showed up!"

"Not true! And at least my hair won't get in the way of a fight!"

"My hair doesn't hinder me! It's beautiful!"

"I'm sure it's gorgeous to a couple of squirrels looking for a home to fix up!"

Romeo was shocked to see this new side of Wendy as she took a few steps away from Romeo, Cole gestured frantically.

"Dude, I don't know who the heck you are but get out of there right now!"

He exclaimed, Romeo didn't bother to ask why his clothes and hair had transmuted from greens and poisonous scarlets to a several shades of purple. Cole knew exactly why, when he realized this kid was a flare mage.

 _Purple flare, huh? That's really rare...wonder if he's gonna be a new member?_

Cole thought to himself.

Romeo heeded Cole's warning an backpedaled away from Wendy just in time.

"SKY DRAGON ROAR!"

Wendy charged and blasted at the girl.

"I'll show you Jack! I'll teach you a lesson this time!" She screeched as the roar struck with deafening impact.

"Sorry, sweetheart, but armored roses are a bit tougher than a breeze!"

Jack had waved her hand and summoned a shield of dark green dangerous looking vines with both gorgeous scarlet roses and dangerous looking red tipped thorns on them.

Wendy ground her teeth in fury as she erupted at Jack in rage.

"Sky dragon wing attack!" She shrieked, cracking her arms down and around, bending the tornado force whips of air around Jack's vines and into the caster herself.

Jack flew backwards but performed a backflip mid air, throwing out one arm and pulling her weight earthward again.

Her plain black boots dug into the soft earth of the turf field and she launched herself at Wendy again.

She raised up one hand and two vines broke through the ground and reached for the sky.

"Arc of the Armored Rose! Thorn dance!"

The crimson tipped thorns launched toward Wendy, but with a wave of her arms, Wendy knocked the thorns away with gusts of wind.

"Sky dragon roar!" She blasted another column of wind at her rival, who leapt and dodged out of the way.

"Ha! So predicable, Cloud Girl!"

"It's Sky Maiden!" Wendy barked.

"Same difference, 'sides, your cleavage ain't really cutting it to be considered a 'maiden'! Maybe next lifetime!"

That was _it_.

"SECRET ART! SKY DRILL!"

Wendy hurtled across the earth, charging Jacqueline with her most dangerous spell.

"All out, eh? ARC OF THE ARMORED ROSE! VINE DRILL!"

A drill of swirling, gnashing vines, thorns, and roses formed in front of Jack and the two were nearly at each other when another spell call echoed.

"TRANSFER MAGIC! FUNNEL!"

Jack and Wendy both let out simultaneous gasps of surprise as they felt their magic energy being pulled out of them, causing their drill attacks to dissipate before they could strike.

Cole had both arms out, each had a magic circle spinning around his fingertips, his teeth were gritting and eyes were pinned shut as he felt two incredibly powerful magics claw their ways into his heart, causing her clothes and hair to become a mishmash of white, blue, red, and green.

With a bark of pain, Cole finished his spell and dropped to his knees, slamming his palms to the grassy ground.

Letting out another half held back scream, he blasted out all of the foreign power.

Gail's of wind blew violently all around him, his hair whipping crazily about his head, the power coming into him, being increased, and expelled causing all of the other kids nearby to cross their arms over their faces as giant thorny vines erupted from the grown, flailing all around them before draining back down into the ground.

Cole leaned heavily on his arms, sitting back on his knees and taking a few shaky breaths before shouting.

"STOP IT! Just, stop it! You guys fight all the time! Why!? She was teasing me, is that a good reason to get into a fight that could tear up half the turf! Just, cut it out! Or I _will_ drain your powers again, and that's not fun for any of us! Got it?" He demanded.

The girls scowled, crossed their arms, and snapped their heads away from each other.

"Fine!" They exclaimed in unison.

Romeo made to help Cole up but he flinched away from him.

"Don't." He snapped.

Romeo put up his hands, surprised at the cold behavior, and backed off.

Cole sighed and pushed himself up.

"No offense, but if you were to directly touch me, I can almost guarantee you'd wind up passed out on the floor."

Romeo blinked in confusion and Cole didn't bother trying to explain.

"I'm heading to the dorms." Cole walked off, and both his guild mates looked on, noticing his trembling hands.

"I guess we went a bit far, the chameleon got pretty pissed." Jack muttered nonchalantly, tucking her arms behind her head.

"I can NOT believe you!"

Wendy yelled.

"The more powerful the mage the more painful the absorption! Cole just had to drain both of our powers, do you have any idea how horrible that must have been? For no reason but a silly grudge! I can't deal with you anymore! C'mon Romeo!"

Wendy whirled, seized the befuddled Romeo by the hand, and dragged him off of the turf and into the castle.

Jack stared after them, arms still tucked behind her head, with an expression both of blind innocence and of hurt.

"What did I do?"

* * *

 ** _Well, that's it! Also, IMPORTANT, I want all of you to go to my profile and vote on my poll, it's for a very pivotal question I've been struggling with and the results of the poll may not even effect my decision, but it will help me figure out what to do, the question? Will Romeo quit Fairy Tail to join Draconem Heart or not? I've been hinting toward this since the early chapters of the first story! SO GO VOTE! Now then, what do you think of Jack? I hope you liked her! Please favorite, please follow, please review, please go vote on my pole! Thanks!  
_**


	20. Bloody Red

**_Ok, starting up the next chapter! Please enjoy!_**

* * *

The mental signal had been sent and everyone was gathered in the dragons hangout, staring up at the stage, on which stood Master Dracoya.

"All of the guilds have arrived!" She announced.

The visiting mages all looked warily around, taking in their surrounding once again.

"Now, we all would first like to thank you for your cooperation during this time, you coming here without much question has saved us hours in which we can prepare."

Master Dracoya steeled her eyes, crossing her arms.

"Understand, please, that the dragon coming is no joke. No prank. No foolish overactive imaginations at play. We ARE about to be attacked, and we need to be prepared. For now, we shall base ourselves around the castle, and I will also go over some basic dragon weak points with our guests, now, all of you I've previously briefed, you may now leave."

In an instant, all of the Draconem Heart members, Jack, Cole, Zahn, and Jellal filed out of the room, leaving it empty.

The remaining wizards moved closer to the stage, and now that she was dealing with less people, Master Dracoya came down to stand before them, offstage.

"Jellal, your on watch, fly above the castle and keep lookout for the dragon."

Jellal nodded in agreement and left the room as well.

"You four..." She gestured to Jack, Cole, Romeo and Wendy.  
"Unless absolutely necessary, you will be joining the Kylie and Asuka in the safe room underground."

"WHAT!?" Jack demanded in fury while Cole looked as though he'd already been expected getting removed from the battle and looked sadly to the side, and Wendy and Romeo looked shocked.

"You heard me." Master Dracoya said firmly.

"But, but..." Wendy stuttered.  
"Master! C'mon! We gotta help! We aren't weaklings! Even chameleon here if useful sometimes!" Jack exclaimed, giving Cole a shove to the shoulder that was cloaked by his poncho.

"I don't think I'd be of much help anyway...but I still want to try." With growing confidence Cole stood up straighter and looked Master Dracoya in the eye.

"And I don't even belong to this guild, so you can't tell me what to do, I can fight the dragon if I want to!" Romeo cried out, pointing at his Fairy Tail guild mark.

Master Dracoya sighed deeply.

"And if and probably when I tell Zahn to levitate you out of the room?"

Zahn glanced at the four younger teens blandly, raising an eyebrow.

"Than we'll break out! We're all...wait how old are you guys?"

Romeo turned to Jack and Cole.

"Thirteen." Cole said.

"Fourteen." Jack said.

"Teenagers in the rebellious age!" Romeo finished.

Master Dracoya rolled her eyes.

"Oh, dear, this is going to be a long day..."

* * *

In the underground safe room.

* * *

"SCREW YOU ZAHN!" Jack shrieked as she banged on the door to the safe room.

"Look, I personally think you guys should be in the fight, especially since Wendy's a dragonslayer and Jack's one of the arc practicing wizards. But unlike that kid..."

Zahn pointed at Romeo, who shouted.

"My NAME is Romeo!"

"...I'm a member of this guild, I have to listen to what Master Dracoya says, and she just doesn't want you all hurt. So stay put!"

With that Zahn walked away from the safe room door.

"Jerk! What do you do now?"

Jacqueline demanded.

Wendy turned back to study the room.

It was lit by lacrima lamps on the walls, and had several cozy couches, four sets of bunk beds, and a large bookcase crammed with all manner of board games, cards, toys, books, and other things to keep them busy. On the far wall Wendy saw a door, and from the gentle cooling flow of air coming from it she could tell it was a cooler of some sort, most likely filled with food. On the way here, trapped in a gravity bubble with a furious Jack, she could tell the room was several hundred yards from the castle, it was beneath the forest and a sealed hatch lead outside.

Obviously this room had been designed to weather a siege out or escape a siege in.

"Well, there aren't any obvious exits and they are probably watching the door and hatch for us to leave out that way. They wouldn't lock us in in case we need to get away, but if we just leave that way, Zahn will float us right back." She said slowly as she walked in.

Kylie and Asuka were sitting on the floor playing a board game.

"Is the big dragon thingy here yet?" Asuka asked in a bored tone.

"No..."

That was when Cole suddenly staggered, groaning and clutching at his head as his clothes were flooded with black and blood red.

As the feathers on his headdress were dyed scarlet he collapsed, and not thinking and standing the closest, Romeo seized his arm to stop him from falling. His _bare_ arm.

Wendy and Jack winced, waiting for Cole to scream and Romeo to hurl himself backwards from the sudden transfer of flare magic into the mage.

To their great surprise he lifted the semi-conscious transfer wizard up and dragged him towards the bunks.

"Well don't just stand there, help me!" He grunted, Cole was his size and weight, maybe even a bit heavier, and definitely several inches taller.

After getting over their amazement, Jack and Wendy leapt forward and lifted his legs, helping him into the bunk as Asuka and Kylie scrambled up from the floor.

"Is he ok!?" Asuka asked frantically, peeking over the edge of the bed at Cole, who was writhing with pain on the bunk.

He forced his now onyx black eyes open, gasping.

"It's...not coming...it's..."

His eyes were clamped shut.

"Here."

Cole tried to calm himself but his body wouldn't settle, he continued quaking and twitching, his breathing never settling as Wendy began to work her magic, attempting to flush the evil energy away like she'd down before.

Yet this time, it had no effect, she tried, pushing her magic hard into her friend's trembling body, but nothing happened.

Wendy's eyes filled rapidly with hopelessness as Cole's teeth gritted in pain and he shook hard, tears fighting out from behind his tightly shut eyes.

"Too...much...I can't..." He gasped.

Suddenly, his eyes flew wide open, tears were free to cascade down his cheeks as he widened his eyes.

They weren't onyx anymore, they were bloody scarlet.

"MOVE!" He screamed.

Jack reacted quickly, seizing Wendy by the arm and Kylie by the scruff of her polka dot jacket, dragging them away from the bed as Romeo snatched up Asuka and backed away.

Cole's scream, and those who knew him well felt as though their hearts were being torn at when they heard it.

He roared, it appeared similar to Rogue's roar attack, only difference was it was so large it demolished the entire ceiling and burst out into the sky above. A tornado of black magic energy swirled, darkening the very air in the room and sucking so violently at the ones inside that their braced feet were sliding toward the pull.

The entire time Cole never stopped screaming.

Finally, the vortex thinned out and settled down, leaving Cole, lying still as death on the bunk, beneath a six foot diameter hole he'd blasted through ten feet of rock and earth and out into the forest.

"Cole!" Wendy cried out, she and Jack sprinting forward.

"Say something! Wake up, chameleon!" Jack demanded.

Cole's eyes opened instantly.

He stared straight up and said nothing, he was still dyed in reds and blacks.

"Cole?" Wendy asked timidly.

"My god..." He croaked, sitting up and leaning back on one arm.

"Your ok!" Wendy was so relieved she hugged him.

Yet again, everyone winced, waiting for the scream and the absorption.

Nothing happened.

Cole's eyes were wide as he stared straight ahead at the wall, feeling Wendy's skin against his and waiting for the flood of sky magic, yet it never came.

"First Romeo, now you...I've never touched two people in a row without absorbing at least once. This can't be..."

Wendy released him but left one hand on his exposed, guild marked shoulder.

Still no absorption.

She finally broke the connection and stepped back, astonished.

"Never once have you touched two people in a row?" Jack asked skeptically.

Cole seemed to consider it.

"Once. I was at a train station and got shoved around by the crowds, but I didn't absorb even though I knew I'd hit two wizards, but the third time I did absorb, and that was a really bad scene."

Jack steeled her gaze, and took one step forward, and put her hand on Coles exposed shoulder.

Cole winced himself this time, Jack was powerful, this was going to hurt.

Nothing.

"What happened?" Cole murmured as Jack stepped back.  
"That's three people who've touched you and you haven't absorbed their power. Something about Shadowlogia's power must be interfering with your abilities. Well, great, for the time being Cole can touch people, as for now."  
Jack turned her head upwards to see the sky had clouded heavily over, she could hear the distant sounds of combat.

"We got work to do."

* * *

 ** _A little short, but we're getting there, I'm going to be following the kids around for a lot of the dragon attack, but I'll be bopping in with some of the other wizards as well! So please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	21. Soaring into battle

**_The dragon has arrived, and the kids are sprinting with a less than stable Cole Wingheart and two little girls to take can of, please enjoy!_**

* * *

Romeo was caring Asuka piggyback, Jack had Kylie on her back, and Wendy was running ahead with Cole, who was insistent that he was fine.

"Guys...it's starting to rain and we still haven't spotted the dragon or a single other person!" Romeo called.

"Well what else do we do but keep running?" Jack grumbled as she continued, legs pumping, Kylie bouncing on her back.

Cole had dodged around a large boulder, the second he did, they all heard him scream.

"LOOK OUT!"

He dove back around the boulder and ran toward them as a blast of nightmare energy shattered the moss covered boulder.

Cole turned on his heel and backed up to be next to Wendy, Jack and Romeo catching up.

The dust of the boulder cleared to show a trio of dragon spawn. They towered ten feet in height each and bent over heavily to rest their front arms on the ground, they were wingless and had heavy plates of black and gold covering them, and a pair of glowing red eyes peered out from behind a large horn like armored piece.  
"This thing is like Motherglare!" Wendy yelped as Romeo backed off from the dragon, Asuka clutching tightly to his vest.

"Guys..." Romeo mumbled, unsure if he should run or not.

"Cole, take Kylie." Jack handed the boy Kylie without a thought, the little girl huffing about how she could walk herself and Cole yet again wincing, before realizing his absorbing power by contact was still malfunctioning.

Jack stepped up in front of all of her friends.

"You guys make for the castle, I can hold them back." She ordered.

"No way we're leaving you here!" Wendy cried.

That was when a flash of lightning illuminated the sky, and the heavens opened out into a downpour.

Water ran down Jack's face as she fisted her hands, the three dragon spawn's bending to spring.

"Wendy...please go." Jack looked over her shoulder and smiled.

"I can handle a few little dragons."

With that she snapped her arms across and a huge curtain of twisted thorny vines wove into a wall, cutting the dragon's off from the rest of the ground.

Leaving Jack on the side with the spawn.

"JACK!" Cole shouted as sound of combat drifted to their ears.

Wendy squinted against the pouring rain to see the over the top of the wall, to see a silhouetted figure, wings spread wide, hundreds of feet in length.

"Oh god..." She staggered backwards, her heart hammering in her chest, tears mixing with the rain.

"There it is." She raised a trembling hand and pointed as the dragon neared.

All of them dropped and covered their heads with their arms as the monster swooped over them, roaring mightily and straining their ears.

Kylie and Asuka wailed in fright, Romeo clutched tightly to Asuka and Cole to Kylie, and the dragon passed over them, on it's way to the castle.

On the other side of the wall, Jack had taken notice of the dragon.

 _I teased Wendy for not being able to beat THAT? God, I'm an idiot._

She thought to herself as she armed herself with vine weapons and bent her knees.

 _Maybe I can pay her back by not getting killed by these things._

* * *

At the Draconem Heart castle.

* * *

Jellal backpedaled in the air when he first spotted the creature, hovering hundreds of feet above his home he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Shivering from his soaked jacket, he decided to signal instead of wasting time to fly all the way down. He ripped his white Nehru jacket from his back and flew downward while waving it in the air.

On the tower, Natsu was squinting up at Jellal's sudden movement, and that was when he spotted the shadow of the dragon shooting just above the clouds.

"IT'S COMING!" Jellal screamed as Natsu turned to face toward the crowds of battle prepped wizards on the lawn of the castle and lined across the turrets.

He roared, blasting a funnel of fire into the sky, and instantly he heard chanting spells, he saw the flight wizards beginning to lift off of the ground, he saw the exceeds rising up as one.

"Jellal is signaling! It's battle time people!" He shouted as he slid down the rail of the ladder, through the room in the tower, and ran down the stairs.

He slammed across the drawbridge as the monster that haunted his nightmares for the past year.

"Shadowlogia."

He breathed.

The monster slammed into the protective dome, and all of the people on the lawn and on the castle walls winces as one, would the spell hold out?

The dragon reared back on his haunches and flapped it's wings twice to carry it upwards, it came smashing back down hard and shattered the spell, it landed on it's rear legs in front of the castle as the wizards on the ground began firing rapidly, exceeds carrying close combat wizards including a 'wildly' screaming Bacchus hurtled upward.  
The dragon, with pure black armored skin and golden swirls all across it, spread it's wings wide and screeched.

Out of the forests, hundreds of dragon spawn came bounding at their mother's call.

"CHARGE!"

Erza lead the offensive wizards as the nearest exceed plucked her up and flew at the dragon, dropping Erza on it's back.

Once she landed she made for it's face, dealing punishing blows that managed to crack the armored plates on it's back with her dual swords.

In her Japanese cloth armor, barefoot to grip the scaly, rain slick surface.

She struggled to the peek of the mammoth dragon's head, fighting against the rain and the howling wind.

She at last reached the precipice at the top of the raging dragon's head, she equipped her black wing armors sword and struck hard, wedging it between two armored, scaly pieces on the towering monsters head and trying to make some sort of wound.

The creature shrieked, tossing it's head and bucking once, sending Erza flying.

She shrieked as she fell from the hundred and fifty foot dragon's head.

The fiery haired mage hurtled earthward, ex-quipping her sword as her arms flailed wildly, trying to find something, anything to break her fall.

That was when a flash of gold dropped from the sky and raced under her, catching her from her deadly drop ten feet from the group, pulling up hard, her savior hugged her tightly.

Erza had clenched her eyes firmly shut, and opened them only when she realized she wasn't dead or mortally wounded.

"J-Jellal?" She stuttered, shocked.

Jellal smiled softly.

"I've done many things wrong in my life, and you've forgiven me for those sins. Not everyone at Draconem wants to be enemies, some of us wish be become friends. Some...even wish to be more."

Erza felt a blush warm her cheeks, eyes wide, she swallowed several times before feeling her voice return under her control.

"T-Take me back to the top again."

Jellal nodded, swooping in a graceful arc towards the nightmarish creature once more.

"Just promise you won't go falling off again."

Erza's heart gave a flutter, even beneath this driving downpour, even listening to this behemoth dragon's screeching.

Despite all of that, in his arms, she felt perfectly safe.

"I wouldn't worry." She said as she turned her head to face the dragon, who was being pummeled with spells as her spawn thinned the wizards's numbers down below.

"After all." She looked back into Jellal's eyes.

"I know you'll always to catch me."

He released her, and both the fairy and her heart soared.

* * *

 ** _There's some Jerza for you, my shipping friends. Hope you enjoyed it! Please favorite, please follow, please vote on my Romeo's guild poll on my profile page, please review! Thanks!_**


	22. Kneeling in the rain

**_Next chapter, going back into the forests! Please enjoy!_**

* * *

Wendy froze as the heard the far off wail of the dragon spawn now running rampant throughout the forest, she was carrying Kylie as she, Cole, and Romeo sprinted in the direction of the castle, able to see the brilliant flashes of spells briefly through the trees.

"Look out!" Romeo hurled himself to one side with a scream as one of the smaller dragon spawn burst from the trees. This one was only a foot or so in height taller than Romeo, but it was still deadly.

Romeo hiked Asuka up higher on his back in order to free one arm, with which he hurled a crackling ball of purple fire at the creature.

It smashed into the tiny dragons chest and left nothing but a small scorch mark.

Wendy hugged Kylie tightly and took a deep breath.

"SKY DRAGON ROAR!" She cried, at once the tornado of magical wind burst from her mouth.

The monster roared in response and shot out a laser beam of black magic energy.

It struck not Wendy but Cole, who was unprepared and let out a scream as he flew backwards and smashed into a tree, a crack splitting the centuries old wood when he slumped to the ground.

"Cole!" Wendy cried, running to aid her fallen comrade.

Romeo was caught temporarily off guard at the sight of the taller boy being brutally hurled the length of the field.

He just had enough time to throw Asuka away as the spawn lunged at him, bringing up a fierce uppercut with it's claws raking across his chest, leaving wounds that instantly turned bright with blood, edged with black, just the same as the wounds inflicted by Shadowlogia itself. Asuka whimpered as she saw Romeo fall and remain down, face scrunched with pain.

Slowly, she reached with a quivering hand to her belt, ad drew her gun that Natsu had given her. Glaring at the hated beast that had hurt her beloved 'big brother' she shoved her hand into her magical ammo creating pouch.

 _Hurt it._

Asuka though wildly.

 _Hurt it._

She gritted her teeth as she used her magic energy to mold the raw material that the pouch produced.

 _Hurt it. Kill it, make this one big, make it huge!_

"LEAVE US ALONE YOU BIG MEANIE!"

Asuka had prepared the clip she'd created and slammed it into her gun, snapping the barrel into position, she aimed the weapon.

"Asuka! No!" Wendy screamed, to late, the seven year old had already pulled the trigger.

Everyones eyes flew wide open as the heat from the spiraling typhoon of fire reddened their cheeks.

"Holy..." Romeo breathed through his pained pants.

A funnel of fiery power so hot the rain hissed and evaporated when it touched it exploded from the barrel of the relatively tiny pistol, the sound of it burning pricking all of the ones there's eardrums.

Asuka skidded backwards several feet, her heels digging into the ground, gripping the gun tightly to support it, point it in the right direction, as the blast swallowed the spawn. It let out it's death scream as it was vaporized into the nightmare dust from which it came.

Asuka was panting heavily as the fire died out, she dropped her arms and still clutched at her gun with both hands, and than a willy grin spread across her face.

"Now I can fight! Just like you guys! Now I can help!" She exclaimed happily before falling straight onto her back to catch her breath.

As Kylie zipped up to her friend to chatter on about have amazing the spell had been, Wendy yet again heard a distant scream, but this time, it didn't belong to one of the creatures.

Her eyes steeled in fury.

"You two watch the girls and head back to the castle, I'll be there as soon as I can!" She ordered sharply before turning on her heel and taking off into the trees, vanishing into the darkness beyond.

* * *

Back at the Draconem Heart Castle clearing.

* * *

Natsu was crouched in the crook of a tree branch, scanning Shadowlogia's stomping feet, searching for some way of knocking the monster down.

Spells were being rapidly flung into it's chest, head, and wings, but it's spawn were distracting the wizards, as the dragon let out the occasional roar of mass destruction, gouging great trenches throughout the once gorgeous hill atop which the castle still stood. The castle itself was still holding up under the onslaught thanks to the literally hundreds of runes and guard spells.

Natsu was about to launch himself at Shadowlogia's bowed knee in an attempt at toppling the dragon when he felt the soft warmth of his own fires being used elsewhere.

He smirked, eyes lighting up despite the horrible situation they were in.

"So Asuka finally found those 'upgrades' I added to her gun and pouch? About time. After all, I would never give her a gun that couldn't spout a little fire."

He grinned wildly as he pushed off of the branch, thoughts of the little girl out there fighting too lighting a fire in his belly.

"FIRE DRAGON IRON FIST!"

* * *

In the vine surrounded clearing

* * *

Jack screamed as she smashed into one of the huge gnarled trees of the woodsy.

Her jacket had been torn badly, holes peppered her jeans and her short hair was a wild halo of fire around her head.

She struggled to her feet, fisted her hands, and staggered hard to one side, pain shooting in a lightning burst from her ankle.

"Arc of the Armored Rose! Vine Drill!" She wailed, pushing off her good leg and throwing her arms out in front of her, the gnashing whirling cone of thorny vines pointing at the last surviving of the three dragon spawn.

The black and gold creature let out a screech as the drill tore into it, ripping a massive hole through it's armored plating and straight through it's chest.

Jack panted heavily as the monster collapsed to the side, silent.

The Draconem Heart wizard moaned and leaned up against a nearby tree as she began to examine her wounds.

The dragon she'd just drilled had raised it's head without her knowing, and was forming a ball of dangerous nightmare energy with it's dying breath.

When Jack realized that a ball of nightmare energy was about to be launched dead toward her, she felt her chest seize up in terror. She shoved to push herself away but pushed off of her bad ankle and ended up tripping drunkenly back up against the tree, still completely exposed.

The monster let out it's final breath, head dropping to the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut after it had performed it's final act of destruction.

The blackened laser of distorted light was hurtling for Jack's chest, if a beam of that force struck her there, she'd be killed.

"JACQUELINE!"

Wendy came tearing out of the underbrush, dove and pushed Jack out of the way.

"Wendy..." The carrot-tops eyes were wide in horror as he watched Wendy's face contort in agony.

The sky dragonslayer had saved her guild mate, taking the hit to herself, a horrifying wound opening up in her lower abdomen. The blue haired girl's eyes were wide, tears spilling down her cheeks unintentionally brought on by the shock of receiving the blow.

 _She took the hit for me...even though I've been nothing but mean and disrespectful towards her...Wendy, no!_

The Scarlet Rose's thoughts were wild.

Jack stood up, watching as if the world were moving frame by frame as it tipped dangerously onto it's edge. Blood dripping from her devastating wound, Wendy tipped forwards, pigtails billowing to either side behind her.

"Wendy!" Jack shrieked as she staggered into a run on her bad ankle, skidding on her knees in the muddy, rain slick grass. Rain was still pounding down on both of them, darkness all around as thunder boomed and lightning speared through the sky. She caught Wendy by the shoulders and as gently as she could, maneuvered her to be lying on her back on the soaking wet grass.

Jack stared down at Wendy, who's eyes were hazy and dull, and her shrill, cracking voice echoing through the darkness and the trees.

"Why in the world did you do that!?"

Wendy eyes struggled to focus, but finally they found Jack's face, and for a reason beyond the young girls understanding, she appeared to find comfort in it. The sky maiden forced a smile, tears from her suffering flooding her cheeks, mixed with rain water from the heavens above.

"B-Because...w-whether or not you've hurt me before...your s-still my g-guild mate. And...I-I n-n-never really h-hated you Jack...when I f-first got here, and still now, I-I j-just hope w-we can b-be friends...a-after all t-that we f-f-fought about...a-a-all that we d-d-disagreed a-about...all I ever w-wanted..."

Wendy trailed off, eyes regaining their faraway, misty gaze.

Jack bent over Wendy, clutching her hand tightly, praying that her contact would somehow pull the girl back from the brink.

Jack wailed with tears spilling out of her eyes as she knelt there in the rain.

"Hang on! I-I'm...sorry! Ok! I didn't k-know about the dragon attack and I didn't k-know that's why you left your o-old guild I t-thought you'd left because you were a lost w-w-wizard and no more reason t-than that! B-But..." Jacqueline swallowed hard to clear her throat so she could speak.

"I'm sorry! I swear when we get home together we can be bestest of best friends and have sleepovers in each others rooms and do each other's hair and nails and all of that girly stuff! Whatever you want! I'll never ever scare you again! I promise! Just hang on! Wendy!"

Wendy blinked several times very slowly, as if confused.

"You want to?" She whispered, her head rolling, her hazy eyes connecting with Jack's own.

"Of course I do! We can do all of that! We'll have a great time!"

Jack promised, lifting Wendy's hand up slightly and holding it with both of hers.

Jack felt her pale fingers curl around her own.

"That sounds like it would have been...nice."

Her eye's faded and closed, brown orbs gone from the earth.

Jack began quaking in horror as she gripped Wendy's hand tighter, just having it fall limp to the ground was something she would not allow.

She would not allow _a friend_ to die like this.

Jack's shoulders shook as she sobbed, kneeling in rain, holding her hand.

"Please...don't leave...don't leave us, Wendy..."

* * *

 ** _Oh, yes, I just did that. Please favorite, please follow, please go vote on my Draconem Heart poll, please review! Thanks!_**


	23. Aflame

**_Well, I got some minor threats for what I did to Wendy...lucky I live in an alternate dimension! :P_**

 ** _Please enjoy the next chapter!_**

* * *

"FIRE DRAGON IRON FIST!"

Natsu slammed into the back of Shadowlogia's bowlegged knees.

"Someone hit the other side!" He ordered, voice raised as loud as it could go.

Someone obeyed the command, leaping upwards and bombarding the opposite knee with powerful explosions of a magic Natsu didn't bother to try and recognize. All he cared about was that it was strong, and that it was working. The pink haired teen continued his own assault on the dragon, trying frantically to knock it down, to injure it in some way.

The dragon let out a pained screech, one of it's wings was swiftly crumpling under the bombardment from more of the wizards below as it fell to one knee, clawing at the ground.

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Natsu exclaimed happily as he dove, landing on the dragons back.

Shadowlogia than bucked backwards hard, sending Natsu stumbling. He lost his balance and hit the scaled surface of the dragon's back hard with one shoulder. He rolled chaotically, arms flailing for a handhold, falling out into the open air for a terrifying instant.

He seized thankfully managed to grab ahold of one of the spikes blooming from the nightmare dragons back.

"Whoa!" He yelped as he swung, dangling fifty feet above the ground, halfway up the she-dragons back.

He struggled to seize the spike with his opposite hand, but it was to slippery from the drenching downpour that still came cascading down upon everyone.

"Natsu!" Onyx shouted from the ground, pointing upwards at the dragonslayer, who was losing his grip, heading for a deadly fall.

"No way my vines could reach him in time!" Orchid wailed as she decked another spawn with a stabbing thorn.

"Neither could my water blasts or your rock pillars!" Misty exclaimed.

"Water Dragon Tsunami Slash!" She shrieked, all of the rain pouring down upon them twisting around her arms and forming a destructive whirlpool that she slammed into several more spawn coming her way.

"Wait...someones up there with him!"

Onyx cried in relief, pointing.

Sure enough, a lithe figure was sliding down the scales of the dragons back, heading toward the spike Natsu clung too.

But before the rain blurred figure could reach the him, the fire dragonslayer fell.

* * *

In the clearing with Wendy and Jack.

* * *

"Wendy...please..." Jack sobbed, shoulders shaking.

"GUYS!" Romeo and Cole came bursting from the trees, Kylie and Asuka running along behind them. Kylie was holding Asuka's hand and using her magic to help them both keep pace with the taller, older boys.

"Oh my god, Wendy!" Cole gasped in horror, staring at the increasingly large pool of blood forming beneath the blue haired girl, soaking into her sleeve and sticking to her dirty blue locks.

"Wendy..." Romeo fell to his knees next to her.

Jack still hadn't released the girls cold hand.

The red head sniffed as water dripped from her sopping wet bangs.

"T-The dragon...a-a-and the the the...I killed it but it...it got up and...it shot at...at me...and...and Wendy...Wendy pushed me...pushed me out of the way..." Jack coughed out, she was shivering violently.

"Cole, Kylie and Asuka." Romeo ordered in a dead voice.

"Right." Cole choked out, his throat was closing up on him.

He quickly moved to the two little girls and turned them around, blocking their view.  
"What happened? Why's Wendy lying on the floor?"

"She's...she's just...asleep..." Cole murmured, still keeping a hand to both of the girls shoulders, steering them in the opposite direction of the unresponsive figure prone on the forest floor.

Romeo fell to his knees beside Wendy, reaching out and placing a hand on her chest for a moment.

He felt it give, but not rise again.

"No...no she can't..." He whispered.

Jack was no help, she just remained, holding tightly to Wendy's hand, not wanting to allow it to fall limp to the ground and confirm the terror that was already reality.

Wendy Marvell was dead.

* * *

On Shadowlogia's back.

* * *

Natsu screamed as his grip slipped, he felt himself falling out into the expanse of open air beneath him.

He closed his eyes and waited to be dashed to death against the trees below.

He felt a hand close around his wrist, and he was jerked to a halt.

"I got you, dragon breath!"

Natsu looked up to be face to face with Gray Fullbuster, who was gripping tightly to the spike on the monsters back, using his ice to strengthen his hold.

"You idiot! Drop me or we're both screwed!" Natsu yelled back.

Wait, had he just told Gray to drop him and save himself?

Gray forced a smile through gritted teeth.

"I got something to say to you, and you ain't clocking out until I say it!"

"Well you might want to spit it out! Shadowlogia's noticed two pests on her back!" Natsu shouted as the dragon began to twist and buck wildly.

"Ok, I want to say..."

"Hurry up before she hits us!" Natsu ordered as Shadowlogia swatted one of her mammoth clawed arms over their heads.

"Right, look, I just want to..."

"Will you hurry up! We're about to be squashed!" Natsu exclaimed as he was swung dangerously to one side, forced to hold onto Gray's arm so that he wouldn't fall.

"WILL YOU SHUT UP SO I CAN TALK!?"

Natsu fell silent, despite an irritated look on his face.

Gray took a rattling breath as they swayed in the relative calm in between Shadowlogia's violent jerks.

"I was wrong. I was so wrong. You charged a freaking demon for me. You did so much for our guild. It was wrong for us to turn on you for something like this, something we had no proof was your fault. Even then you invite us into your new home. I know..."

Gray grunted in between his words as the dragon let out a beastly roar and staggered to one side.

"What I'm trying to say is I'm sorry, my god, I said it at the games but I was never sure if you even heard me! I'm sorry, you fire breathing, stupid, idiotic, retarded excuse for a dragonslayer! I'm sorry!"

Natsu stared at him, rain pounded down on both of them as Gray took a rattling breath and barked.

"Look out!"

Shadowlogia's claws flew over their heads yet again, and Gray released the spike.

"NOW I'M GETTING US OUT OF THIS MESS!"

He yelled as he and Natsu fell.

"Ice make slide!" He blasted out a thick arc of ice, Natsu landed on it with a thump and instantly went spinning out of control on his back, twirling like a top. Gray molded the ice to his will, sliding down with ease as if on a snowboard, guiding them out of harms way as the wounded dragon crushed the slide they had ridden behind them.

"Gray saved him!" Cobra yelled in surprise.

Orchid, Onyx, Misty, and Cobra himself all glanced at each other.

"Gray?" Onyx asked, skeptic.

"Well, that was unexpected...WATER DRAGON WING SLASH!"

"GARDEN DRAGON FANG!"

"POISON DRAGON SCALES!"

"ROCK DRAGON PILLARS!"

* * *

Within the forest of the West Woodsy.

* * *

"This can't happen...I can't..."

Romeo felt tears spill down is face, he felt himself shaking, shivering as the rain pounded down, as lighting lanced through the sky.

An instant later thunder boomed, and Romeo snapped.

"NO!"

He screamed, causing Jack's head to snap up in surprise and Cole to look over his shoulder.

Romeo leaned over the corpse, trembling, feeling fire licking at the inside of the shell he called his body.

He wasn't going to let this happen.

Romeo hugged her, he pulled the form close to his chest, her head lolled back like a broken dolls.

Jack had been forced to release Wendy's hand at last when Romeo had grabbed her, as he clutched tightly to the body, he felt the fire roaring.

He had to let it out.

The boy was a pillar of green flame, the power hurling Jack the length of the field.

The rain hissed as it evaporated upon the fires touch.

Romeo screamed. He screamed until his throat felt raw, an even then he did not stop. This power was to much, it was hurting him, it was ripping out of him and into the freedom above. This flame was the color of the sky he and Wendy had looked up at, lying on their backs in the grassy field behind the hall when they'd still been in the same guild. The color, to Romeo, represented life, it represented a love as vast and unending as the sky that shared it's hue.

But the fire was for Wendy, and that was why Romeo made it blue.

The pulses of power thrummed from Romeo, who was still screaming his anguish into the sky. Still holding the bloody, broken frame to him.

Still aflame.

"Romeo!" Jack screeched, watching through the distorted visions the pillar of flame allowed of her friends.

Cole had forgotten completely about keeping Asuka and Kylie preoccupied, all of them were staring in awe at the power Romeo had released.

His scream was dying down, and with it went the flame, it fell lower and got thinner, it wavered until it was extinguished by the driving downpour.

Romeo's eyes looked weakened and he was cradling the form of the girl he so dearly loved.

Looking down at her, the group was frozen in place, the two young girls knowing better than to say something now.

"Wendy...please don't go..." Romeo begged.

Her head hung limply, her hands were ice cold.

Romeo lowered his head in grief, holding her closer one last time, tucking her head onto his shoulder, and feeling her soft breath tickling his neck.

* * *

 ** _I UPDATED! *Commence victory dance.* Life has been hectic and I have been struggling for inspiration and writing time. So hey, look! I updated! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	24. No longer safe

**_PEOPLE OBSERVE!_**

 ** _So many of you are pissed off that I killed Wendy, but, let me see, do dead people tickle the backs of their friend's necks with their breath!?_**

 ** _Geez, you need to read in more detail. Some of you caught me! Good job, you people who caught my sneaking! You people complaining about Wendy's death? Please continue into the next chapter, starting with Wendy coughing up blood._**

* * *

Wendy started to spasm in Romeo's lap, twitching unnaturally before she rolled over and hacked up a huge amount of blood and vomit.

She groaned as she sat back, still spitting up mixtures of blood and spit, and clutched at her sore, forcibly healed side.

"Wha...happened?" She choked out as she rubbed her stomach.

"Wendy!"

Romeo dragged Wendy back into his lap and hugged her, not caring how weak she was, not caring how bloody and muddy and covered in filth she was.

She was _his_ Wendy, and she was alive.

* * *

At the Draconem Heart clearing.

* * *

"Master! We're fighting a losing battle, here!" Cobra barked haughtily as he sprinted up to Master Dracoya.

The woman let a cool gaze drift over the dragon, it had fallen to Natsu and Gray's assault, only to rise again, as indestructible as ever.

"The guy's right, Master! What do we do?" Onyx demanded as he sprinted over.

Master Dracoya furrowed her brow, scowling suddenly.

"Get everyone clear of the dragon."

She ordered as she turned and marched back toward the castle with a swish of her red scaly dress.

"Yes ma'am!" Onyx shouted before turning and racing back into the fray.

"Rock Dragon diamond fist!" He barked, smashing a dragon spawn so hard

it's jaw snapped backwards and it collapsed to the ground.

"EVERYONE! GET AWAY FROM THE DRAGON! INTO THE CASTLE! MASTER DRACOYA HAS ORDERED A RETREAT!"

He wailed.

All the Draconem Heart wizards fell back instantly, sprinting for the drawbridge as ordered.

"No! It's not wild to retreat!" Bacchus cried angrily.

"Look out!" Orchid screamed when she saw something coming up behind the Quattro Cerberus wizard.

A clawed arm seized him around the waist, and he screamed as Shadowlogia lifted him up off of the ground.

"BACCHUS!" Several of the man's guild mates cried out in horror, charging toward the dragon to aid their leader.

Not before the dragon hurled the wizard into the air.

"WILD!" He yelled out one last time before he tumbled helplessly into the dragon's jaws.

The gnashing teeth slammed shut and everyone was frozen in terror.

"RETREAT!" Onyx ordered again, waving to several exceeds.

Four of the flying cats swooped down and seized the other Quattro Cerberus members, shooting off toward the castle and carrying them inside, they struggled the entire time, yelling out in choked grief.

"That monster just ate someone!" Another wizard screamed, and panic swept through the crowd of mages. Spells were flung with higher intensity, blasting away at the beast it it licked it's lips of it's recent meal.

"That didn't just happen...right?" Orchid stuttered in horror, backing away from the dragon as Cobra hurried

"Oh my god...Bacchus..." Cana moaned as Lucy grabbed her arm.

"Let's go!" She begged, dragging the drunkard toward the drawbridge, Loke and Aries bring up their rear, protecting the two women from the lingering dragon spawn.

Natsu narrowed his eyes. That dragon had just crossed the line, murdering a wizard that had done nothing wrong. Nothing to deserve what had happened to him.

He let out a fierce howl as he launched himself at the dragon.

"Natsu! No!" Onyx yelled, his throat clenching tight after the sight of Bacchus being devoured whole.

"COME BACK!" Orchid begged.

Natsu bombarded the dragon with wildly powerful attacks.

That is, until a sparkling, crackling energy whip wrapped around his waist and dragged him hard back down to earth.

Back into a pair of soft arms hugging him from behind.

"Natsu. Please." Lucy whispered, resting his head on Natsu's shoulder.

She'd left a distressed Cana in Loke and Aries's hands and came back for her former beloved partner.

Natsu gritted his teeth, his body shaking with fury.

"DAMMIT!" He screamed as he turned and ran, seizing Lucy by the hand.

Lucy retracted her whip and placed it back at his waist as they raced across the clearing and up the hill toward the drawbridge, legs burning.

The drawbridge slammed up once everyone was inside and Lucy instantly clung to Natsu, tears pouring freely down her face after what she'd just witnessed.

"Bacchus..." Cana sniffled, she sat on her knees on the floor of the entryway, her face buried in her hands.

"We have several incredibly powerful runes left. It'll take the dragon a while to break them down, they'll buy us time."

That was when a pained screech of the dragon echoed from outside.

"But...what?" Yuka mumbled.

"Everyone to the turrets!" Onyx ordered, and the army of wizards followed the flow of the ones who knew the castle well up the stairs. Cana having to be half carried after the lost of someone so dear to her.

"Oh my god." Lyon's voice carried over the crowd.

Everyone arrived at the top of the castle wall and were met with an incredible sight.

Through the driving downpour, they were able to make out the form of a golden and scarlet dragon aura wrestling Shadowlogia to the ground.

* * *

In the forest.

* * *

Wendy's eyes were bleary and unfocused, she was trembling and shivering heavily. Her stomach throbbed painfully and she couldn't even support her own weight. She often had to halt their painstakingly slow progress to turn her head and hurl what little was left in her stomach to the forest floor.

"I feel like I wish I was dead..." Wendy groaned, she was hugging herself and shivering heavily.

"Wendy...please don't say that." Romeo murmured, clutching at her arm tightly.

Cole had already offered his poncho, Jack her hoodie, and Romeo his scarf. She'd rejected them all, with the rain still coming heavily down, she'd not wanted any of her friends to catch cold.

Out of all of them, all three had insisted, and finally the blue haired girl had relented to allowing Jack to help her into her black and orange jacket, the only article out of all of their collective spare clothing that actually fit Wendy.

Wendy was now cuddled in the jacket and being carried in Romeo's arms. They were making their slow way back towards the hole which lead to the safe room. From their they could take the tunnel back to the castle, provided it hadn't collapsed or been overrun with dragon spawn yet.

They slogged through the muddy forest for a time in silence, other them Wendy's occasional bout of hacking coughs.

Romeo's healing had saved her life, brought her back from the dead, as a matter of fact. But it had cost her dearly in means of health. Her own healing magic could repair without causing the person being healed to feel any sort of aftershock in means of sickness or exhaustion.

Romeo was not a healing mage, but the extreme emotional stress he'd been under had caused her lost mage abilities to erupt. At that moment he could feel the fires inside him raging. He wasn't in control, already he'd felt fire beginning the manifest into physical form before he'd barely managed to quell it.

Romeo didn't feel like his magic was safe anymore.

He didn't feel like he was safe anymore.

* * *

 ** _Well, took me long enough. I went to my first anime con and just got home yesterday! I cosplayed as China from Hetalia and had a few friends as other characters, and we spent three whole days there. It took a big bite out of my writing time, as you can tell. Well, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks for reading!_**


	25. Blood and grime

**_Next chapter! Please enjoy!_**

* * *

"There's more in the woods all around us! If we don't make it back we won't make it at all!" Jack screamed, clutching a little girl under each arm. Wendy was still being cradled protectively by Romeo, and Cole was leading the way, his clothes still stained black by the darkness surrounding them.

The storm was still raging, powerful, unstoppable, lightning lanced from the sky, thunder boomed, and rain still drenched them all to the bone. Soaked and shivering, the young mages pushed onward.

They could hear the dragon spawn snaking through the woods all around them, both Asuka and Kylie were clutching tightly to Jack's arms, as tightly as the fear clutched at their tiny hearts.

"LOOK OUT!" Cole screamed as a spawn lunged from the woods, gnashing it's fang and almost managing to take Jack's head off of her shoulders.

Jack shrieked and reacted instantly.

"Arc of the armored rose! Thorny breath!"

A blast of poison tipped thorns of green and red speared the creature burst from Jack's mouth, punching holes into it's scaly armor.

"Run!" Jack yelled, unwilling tears in her eyes from the shock of such a near death experience, something she and the rest of her comrades had been having all to much as of late, welling in the corners of her eyes.

They all broke into a sprint, Wendy was shivering painfully hard in Romeo's arms, occasionally breaking the silence of the crunching footsteps with a heartbreaking wrenched cough.

Romeo gritted his teeth, seeing her in so much pain made him feel like someone had torn his soul in half. He could feel the fires raging below the surface of his skin, as if he was boiling from the inside out.

The boy ran as he thought of happy times, of when he was running through the fields with this same girl he now carried injured in his arms. Hadn't it been just hours ago when they'd been so confident? They'd had to strongest of the country there at their sides, they'd been in the stronghold of a guild that hadn't been discovered in thirty years. Yet all of this pain and suffering was happening, when mere hours before they'd been arguing in the courtyard of the castle, they were now in the darkened, dangerous forest, running for their lives.

"I think...we're gonna make it!" Jack proclaimed as they broke into the clearing, sure enough, there it was, the mammoth hole that Cole's tortured roar had ruptured out of the earth.

They made to dive into the hole, but Cole flung them backwards.

"Spawn! They've taken over the tunnel!" He exclaimed, pushing back against Jack's chest, forcing them all away from the entry.

"How many?" Romeo demanded.

Cole looked up at him with a fearful desperation in his scarlet eyes.

"To many." He replied.

"We need to get away from here, before they pick up our scents."

Cole hissed, scrambling quickly away from the dragons, waving his arm to lead them all back into the forest, where they collapsed around a large gnarled trees roots in exhaustion.

Romeo gritted his teeth to stop from screaming in frustration, Wendy was getting worse by the second, and if they didn't get her to Cheila or at least some form of medical aid, he didn't know what would happen.

"We need to get away from here, before they pick up our scents."

Cole hissed, scrambling quickly away from the dragons.

"We'll have to go directly to the castle, there's no other option.

Romeo stated, setting Wendy briefly down on the ground to rest his shoulders for a moment.

Said girl was in a blurry half awake state, she was rarely blinking.

At the moment, Wendy seemed to be struggling to say something, but her lips were refusing to move in the proper way to make words.

Finally, she spat out.

"Go...you can..." She said, her voice trembling so hard that it cracked painfully at the end.

"What?" Jack asked, moving to her badly injured friend, who was currently leaning back in Romeo's arms, he was keeping her propped up since she didn't have the energy to do it herself.  
Wendy took several heavy breaths, her teeth were chattering and she was shivering violently in the dreadful downpour.

"You can...go alone...leave me...here...I slow...you down..."

"SERIOUSLY!?" Romeo yelled, so loudly that the sick girl jumped.

As if to combat this suggestion, Romeo slid his arm under Wendy's knees and put the other around her shoulders, lifting her off of the ground again. He staggered under the weight for a moment, than he pulled her into a comfortable position and looked down on her.

"Wendy, after all this, we are not leaving you. We would never do that. No matter what you say or do, we will never leave you behind. So get that idea out of your head and focus and resting. You need your strength."

Wendy whimpered softly, she was in obviously in pain but all she wanted was for her friends to get to safety.

"Alright, let's move." Romeo declared to his other companions.

Cole and Jack nodded, Jack taking both Asuka and Kylie into her arms again.

Kylie squirmed in protest.

"I can run myself! I'm fast! If you carry me it makes it harder for you!" She exclaimed.

Jack knew she should protest but seeing as she'd have a hand free to protect both of them and she knew Kylie could easily keep up.

"Alright, but I want you to stay right next to me, right in between me and Cole, behind Romeo, understand?"

"Ok!" Kylie agreed, happy to be on her own two feet, where she felt the most comfortable.

Jack set her down when she suddenly realized what she could do.

It was risky, but it just may save them all.

"Kylie..." She began slowly, earning concerned glances telling her to stop her suggestion from Cole and Romeo.

"Just how fast can you run?"

Kylie stared up at her with her round, sparkling eyes.

"Real fast." Was her reply.

"Do you know how to make it to the castle from here?"

"Yup."

"How fast could you get to the castle, do you think?"

"A few minutes."

Cole was shaking his head, long black locks swishing back and forth, and Romeo just stood in horror at the mere idea, Wendy didn't seem to be aware of the situation, but even she sensed the tension.

"Kylie."

Jack knelt down and put a hand on the little girls shoulder, setting Asuka down and using the now free hand to brush the fiery red locks from Kylie's face.

"I want you to run to the castle and get help, lead them back to us, we'll keep heading straight for the castle. Kylie, listen to me. Go straight to the castle, no matter what, no matter if something starts chasing you, if someone tells you to stop, don't listen. Kylie, run _as fast as you can_."

"As fast as I can?" Kylie asked incredulously, often enough she was being told to _never_ go as fast as she could.

Jack nodded, her own soaked orange locks shifting. Lightning lit up the air and an instant later thunder boomed.

Kylie jumped, frightened by the sound.

"Kylie, we are all counting on you to go and get help. Anyone you know. Orchid, Onyx, Natsu, Gajeel, Zahn, Sofie, Laxus. Anyone you know. Do not go to anyone you don't know, even if you think they are from one of the visiting guilds. Understand?"

Kylie gulped and nodded hard, she didn't understand why tears were welling in her eyes.

"Alright then, I want to see the biggest take off you've ever done."

Kylie took a deep breath and got down into sprinters position.

"Ready. Set."

Jack swallowed the lump in her throat, praying the girl wouldn't be hurt.

"GO!"

Jack barked, and Kylie's tiny feet began to pound the ground.

A blue magic circle erupted on the ground, and a huge amount of mud from the downpour sprayed up in their faces and Kylie took off, her curly red hair whipping in the air behind her.

The three older mages looked after her while Asuka just about burst into tears at the sight of her friend being sent off.

Jack steeled her gaze.

"The farther we get before she begins to lead someone back the better! Run!"

* * *

With Kylie.

* * *

Her lungs felt as if they had been set aflame as she ran, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been allowed to run so fast. Her hair was dragged out like a trail of fire in the air behind her, her polka dot jacket, unzipped, was whipping. Kylie panted hard as she ran, her blue eyes wide and filled with fear as she ran toward an uncertain goal. She'd not been lying, she knew the way back to the castle, she really did.

Thunder boomed in the air above her again, lightning cracked downward, and Kylie squeaked out of fear, no one there to comfort her.

Tears spilled from her eyes and she pumped her arms, the faster she got to the castle, the faster she got back to her friends.

Yes, the littler girl viewed them as her friends, of course she did.

 _Gotta make it for Asuka. Gotta make it for Jack. Gotta make it for Cole. Gotta make it for Romeo. Gotta make it for Wendy!_

This thought repeated over and over in her mind as she sprinted, spraying up mud and dirt behind her, performing mammoth leaps of over four feet to hurtle roots, bushes, and other obstacles.

That was when a dragon spawn, armored and terrifyingly large to the three foot tall six year old, loomed out of the shadows.

Kylie screamed in horror, her voice cracking as she wailed, skidding straight toward the monster.

She steeled her gaze, no matter the tears flowing freely onto her freckles cheeks, she glared at the monster she was fast approaching and barked.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!"

She somehow managed to urge herself to go even faster, and shot into the best form of a side kick she could manage.

She slammed into the monster dead in the center of the chest, and, turning herself into a living projectile, she drilled a hole dead through it.

She screeched to a halt after this, as the dead body of the dragon wobbled before tumbling limp to the ground.

She turned, trembling from head to toe, and stared for a long moment as the Kylie-sized hole she'd torn through the beast.

She reached up and touched her hair, horrified to find it sticky with the dragons innards. She gulped hard as, after a brief search, she found a small puddle at the foot of a tree, partially sheltered from the rain.

Kylie looked into the puddle, and her appearance frightened her.

Her hair had flecks of blood in it, her pants had been splattered with the liquid seeing as she kicked her way through it. She was covered in mud, her jacket smeared with brown.

She had a single large streak of blood across her cheek.

Swallowing hard, Kylie took several deep breaths, trying to compose herself.

Hours ago, she'd been playing happily with her best friend, now, she was covered in mud, grime, and a monsters blood, running through a forest that had once been lovely and beautiful to her, but was now dark and unforgiving.

Looking into the puddle again, Kylie didn't bother to try and wipe away the blood on her face.

Turning in the direction of the castle and getting into sprinters position once more, she forced all thoughts of the kill she'd just made from her mind.

 _Gotta do it for my friends._

In a blast of mud that buried the body of the spawn behind her, Kylie took off again, and Mavis help anything that got in her way.

* * *

 ** _The fate of her friends rests on her shoulders, will Kylie make it? Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks for reading!_**


	26. On our way

**_Guess who's in the mood to write? Please enjoy the next chapter!_**

* * *

Everyone was atop the turrets and towers of the front wall of Draconem Heart castle. Thankfully, Hibiki had detected signs of spawn making their way in through the safe room tunnel, and, courtesy of Onyx, there were now several large walls of bedrock and criss crossing rock pillars blocking their path.

Unfortunately, this also caused widespread panic about the children that were supposed to have been safe and sound within the safe room.

KeKe and Kayden, Kylie's parents, were particularly distraught, and it had taken everything to stop the two from plunging into the forest to search for their young daughter.

All of the wizards currently standing on the towers walls, squinting through the downpour and the flashes of bright lightning.

Shadowlogia was being viciously attacked by a dragon aura, and in the center of the golden, glowing creature, was Master Dracoya herself.

The dragonslayers were all together, standing in a row along the very edge of the turret, eyes wide as they watched their master doing battle.

"I want to charge in." Natsu growled, his instinct was to aid, of course.

Gajeel shook his head and put a hand on the fire dragonslayers shoulder to stop him from doing something he may regret.

"We'd just get in her way. We'll move in when she tells us to."

Gajeel ordered.

And thus the other dragonslayers, their chests constricting with conflicted emotions, watched their master singlehandedly forcing back the dragon of nightmares.

* * *

With Kylie.

* * *

The fiery haired little girl rushed through the underbrush, ripping whole branches off of trees with the violent winds that were left by her passing.

Painful hot pokers jabbed at her lungs, her face was badly scratched from running into low hanging branches.

She'd been sent by Jack to get help from the castle, she would complete that goal, no matter what happened.

She took another step, and her foot landed in a mud puddle.

With a surprised shriek, she found herself sliding several feet forward before her foot caught on a dry patch of earth and she smashed face first into the ground.

She lay there in dazed pain for a moment, panting hard, face turned to the side, not caring how dirty she was getting.

The rain pounded her tiny, helpless looking form, and tears were mixing with the blood and grime on her cheeks. She was alone in a terror filled forest, she could hear the spawn marching through the underbrush, and she didn't know if she could do what she'd done before, kick a hole clear through a monsters chest, again.

Kylie felt overwhelmed, here she was, a six year old girl, shielded from harm by tall castle walls and protective guild mates her entire life.

All of the sudden, it was up to her and her alone to save her friends, one of whom was quite literally dying.

She wondered if she just lay there, how long would it take for Jack and the others to find her? Or would her parents discover her? Maybe it would be one of her other guild mates?

Or would she just lay there forever?

Thunder shattered the somewhat peaceful silence all around her, and Kylie winced, gritting her teeth.

She got up on shaky legs, and knelt down again, taking off.

The wind blew the dirt from her face almost instantly, and as she ran, Kylie felt her worries beginning to slip away.

She could make it. She would make it.

She did make it.

Through a patched area of trees, she spotted one of the gold and green flags still flying proudly, she could see the tiny figures of the mages atop the walls.

With a choked half sob, half yell of joy, Kylie burst from the trees and made a beeline for the castle.

She saw Master Dracoya battling Shadowlogia, but she tried to block it all out, she needed to make it up that wall, over one last obstacle.

The tiny form darting from the underbrush went unnoticed by the mages, all eyes were glued on the ferocious combat that was going on in the grassy clearing that was in front of the castle itself.

Kylie leapt the moat easily, her speed carrying her right over.

With another burst of a light blue magic circle, Kylie went vertical, sprinting straight up the stones, up the tall castle walls.

She hurtled several feet in the air over the edge of the wall, landing on her feet, she made the final dash.

Straight into her unsuspecting Mother's leg.

"MAMA!" She wailed.

KeKe yelped in surprise, her hands flying up and her own bright red locks bouncing chaotically from her high ponytail.

She caught sight of her daughter, who had completely broken down, clinging to her leg and sobbing into it.

"KYLIE!"

KeKe dropped to her knees and seized her daughter, who crawled all too eagerly into her mothers lap.

"Shh...shh...it's ok sweetheart, I'm here, Mama's right here..."

KeKe tried to sooth her daughter as she stroked calming circles into her back.

Kayden had taken notice of this from her spot a couple yards away.

"Kylie! Thank god!"

He sprinted over to his family and wrapped her arms around his wife, so that Kylie was warm and safe in between the both of them.

Kylie shuddered when she realized what she was forgetting.

"We need...I need someone strong...who did Jack say..."

The long list of mages Jack had suggested slipped the little girls mind at the moment.

All except one.

"Laxus."

Both KeKe and Kayden were confused by the sudden naming of the lightning dragonslayer as Kylie clambered one aching limb at a time from her parents warm embrace.

Kylie's trembling voice continued to explain.

"She said...said to come get Laxus...get Laxus and take him back to them. Wendy got hurt real bad. Romeo is carrying her."

Kylie turned her still shining blue eyes up onto her concerned looking family.

"Mama, Papa, Wendy died and Romeo brought her back. But now she's sick and Romeo can't bring her back again this time."

Confused at this last comment, KeKe and Kayden both looked worriedly to each other.

"You can't go back. You...oh my god...what happened to you!?"

Kylie's mother had finally gotten a good look at her daughter, and realized that what she before thought had been mud was actually scarlet blood.

"Are you hurt!?" Kayden demanded, setting his daughter down before her and turning her this way and that, checking for injuries.

Kylie shook her head.

"It's not my blood. Well...a little is."

She ran a finger over one of the several scratches across her face that had been cut by the low lying branches.

"I killed a spawn monster on the way here. It reared up in front of me. I told it to get out of the way but it wouldn't listen to me. So I kicked my way right through it's chest and killed it. I kept going even though I felt awful. Now I gotta find Laxus and go back!"

Kylie declared, she was going to finish this mission with her parents approval or not.

Knowing her parents approval would take to long, Kylie darted back across the space of the turret and dove into crowd of mages all across the wall.

Careful not to gain anyones notice, and ignoring her parents pleas for her to come back, Kylie located the one she searched for.

The long furred coat hung down to the backs of her knees, which was just within Kylie's reach.

"LAXUS!" She yelled loudly, yanking hard on the furred black coat, knowing the mages affinity for wearing his sound pod at all times of the day.

Of course Laxus wasn't wearing his sound pod at the moment, but the shout from below and the wild tugging on his jacket sleeve got his attention.

He glanced down skeptically, until he saw Kylie, covered nearly head to toe in either mud or blood.

"Kylie?"

He asked, not bothering to bend down to the girls level.

As such, Kylie had to crane her neck to look the massive man in the eye.

"Wendy and Romeo and Jack and Cole and Asuka need your help! Please! They sent me ahead and Jack told me to find you and bring you back and so I ran all the way here and even fought a spawn monster to make it!"

Laxus wasn't about to say no to that, and simple shot his gaze back out to the chaotically brawling dragons.

"Gajeel."

Said dragonslayer turned to look up at Laxus.

"I'm going to help the kids, bring them back here."

"Whatever. Just don't get any of them killed." Was Gajeel's disgruntled reply.

"Which way, squirt?"

Laxus asked.

"They said they'd keep heading for the castle from where we were. I came from that direction." Kylie proclaimed, pointing.

Laxus bent and scooped up the child in one arm, narrowing his eyes as lightning leapt around his form.

"We're already on our way."

* * *

 ** _Yay! Back on the story! Laxus is on his way to aid the kids, but will he arrive in time to save Wendy? Find out next chapter! Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	27. IMPORTANT READ IMMEDIATELY!

_**Hey! Sorry this isn't actually a chapter, but it is important and you all need to do this!**_

 _ **Go and vote on my Draconem Heart poll, the result of said poll will greatly affect where the story is heading! The poll concerns several of the most popular pairing of Draconem Heart, including but not limited to, Rophie, Vaxus, CoOr, and others!**_

 _ **So, click on over to my profile and vote! If your favorite pairing is not listed on the poll, than you can just review to this chapter with YOUR fav pair and why you want them to get together! Repeat, the faster you people vote, the faster I come up with where the Draconem's are going next, and the faster you get to read more about our favorite lost guild! So, thanks for reading, and please go and check out that poll! Thanks again!**_

 _ **-Amethyst**_


	28. Keeping awake, keeping alive

**_Laxus and Kylie are on there way! Also, sorry for the crazy long no updates period. I really really had a writers block with this story, so I wrote a bit for my Hetalia fandom stories, but now I'm back! So please enjoy!_**

* * *

"What's taking Kylie? I hope she wasn't hurt..." Cole asked as they ran through the underbrush, still moving as fast as they could with Romeo being slowed down by carrying Wendy.

The sky dragonslayer's condition was worsening, she was still shivering heavily, and her eyes looked hollow, unseeing.

"Wendy, please say something. Talk to us. It'll help you."

Romeo begged, trying to make Wendy do something that would help her stay conscious.

After a few moments, it seemed that Wendy responded.

"Do you remember when I first met you?"

Romeo was immensely relieved to here Wendy's voice.

As the shadows of the trees whipped over them, and the distant shrieking of dragons, mages, and spawns alike surrounded them, Romeo replied, out of earshot of the other running children.  
"Of course. I was only six. It was before tenrou."

"When I saw you, I thought you were adorable. You were so excited and you were sitting on your Dad's shoulders and grinning from ear to ear and you were funny..." Wendy's voice was shaky and rattling on, she was talking nonsense to fulfill Romeo's request of her talking to him.

"Really? I would never think I was cute."

"Then I saw you again when we came back and you weren't little anymore. It was so weird. We were the same age...you were actually a bit older."

Romeo chuckled.

"Not even a year." He replied.

Wendy's head swayed in what could have been called a shake of the head.

"Guess so. You were still really cute and I really liked you but so much nutty stuff happened to the guild that we couldn't get to know each other."  
Wendy's chest bucked slightly as she giggled softly, the noise barely making it to Romeo's ears.  
"Remember the cat with the great big hat and the glasses?"

Romeo forced a smile.

"Oh, yeah, his name was Samuel, right?"

"Uh-huh...he was sillllllllly."

Wendy stretched the word out and Romeo's smile became a bit less forced.

"How are you feeling?" Romeo couldn't resist asking.  
"I feel...sick. Really, really, sick. What happened?" She asked, eyes unfocused.

"What do you remember?"

"I remember pushing Jack away from a blast. I got hit, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Is that why I feel sick?"

Romeo shoot his head to her as he gathered his legs under himself and leapt a log blocking the path. Shoulders aching from the extra weight, the flare mage landed on the other side and continued running.

"No. I wanted to help you, so I unlocked a new spell I didn't even know I had. I healed you."

Wendy giggled again.

"Your a flare mage...everyone knows that. You don't heal. Thats my job."

Romeo was slightly surprised. Everyone assumed that he was a flame mage, but Wendy knew the proper term.

"Well, I couldn't let you die, so I tried my best to save you. I'm sorry if you feel so bad because I botched the job."

Wendy smiled dreamily.

"If I'm alive, then I guess it worked huh? Y'know, Romeo, I really like you a lot. Your funny and cute and you can heal stuff too, we have more in common then I thought."

Romeo felt a blush race across his cheeks.

 _Really likes me a lot? Is that the sickness talking!?_

He thought frantically.

After that, Wendy indulged into mindless chatter that Romeo paid close attention too every word, keeping her talking was keeping her awake. And keeping her awake could mean keeping her alive.

* * *

With Kylie and Laxus.

* * *

The unlikely duo touched down in a bolt of lightning in the clearing with the hole that led into the castle.

"They aren't here!" Laxus barked.

Kylie's frantic eyes roamed the field, until she spotted the path she'd run off down.

"That way!" Kylie pointed from her place, seated on one of Laxus's shoulders. The man's broad shoulder length gave her plenty of room.

"Alright." Laxus said before launching from the ground again.

With lightning lancing from his feet and all around his form, Laxus hurtled down the path, flying along at incredible pace, until shadowy figures came into view.

"There they are!"

Kylie cried out joyously as they gained on the stumbling group of children.

"Guys!"

Laxus vaulted over them and skidded to a halt, stopping them in their tracks.

"Laxus!" Jack nearly cried with relief when she saw the towering slayer. Seeing a man like that, knowing he was on your side and would protect you, was enough to bring a tidal wave of release from the stress that had been building crashing through the young girl.

Kylie leapt down from Laxus's shoulder, landing after the drop and bending her knees, before scampering up to Jack.

"I did it! I found my way to the castle and brought Laxus back here, just like you said too!"

The armored rose mage let out a shaky breath and knelt, wrapping Kylie in a bear hug.

"Thank you, Kylie. You did a great job."

Meanwhile, Laxus had strode right over to Romeo, who was quickly tiring, for he still carried Wendy.  
"I hear you brought her back to us and kept her here." Laxus said in a flat voice.

"I tried my best, but she's still hurt." Romeo murmured.

Laxus nodded as he took Wendy into his arms.

"She'll be alright." He said.

Laxus looked down on Romeo for a long moment, than spoke.

"Y'know, when you were a shrimp, I never thought you'd grow up to be all to tough. Guess I was wrong."

Romeo blinked, then a vague smile came onto his face.

 _I suppose that the closest thing to a complement I'll get._

He thought, before Laxus turned to Cole.

Cole looked weary, as if holding off Shadowlogia's influence was finally getting to him. He had dark circles under his eyes and was fisting and relaxing his hands over and over again.

Laxus sighed, he had to get all of these kids back to the castle, and fast.

"I can only teleport two at a time. Three if I take both the shrimps at once."

"Hey!" Kylie and Asuka exclaimed in unison.

"But that's not gonna work. I'm not leaving any of you alone in the woods any longer, the trees are crawling with dragon spawn. You guys are lucky that not many have charged you."

Laxus said firmly.

Jack nodded.

"So we keep running?"

Laxus agreed with a firm bob of his head.

"Let's get going, who knows what'll come out of these woods next."

* * *

 ** _Argh...raise your hand if you hate writers block. This is so short compared to my other chapters too! I ran off and wrote like three stories for Hetalia and I come back to this and feel the strong urge to bang my head on a brick wall. Oh well, I did it, I hope you all enjoyed it! I know nothing really happened in this chapter, but Laxus did find the kids, so now I get into the giant climax battle part, which should be easier for me to write. So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks! (Also, any Hetalia fans, please check out my East Asia stories, mostly centering around Japan, on my profile!) Bye!_**


	29. Dragonslayers together

**_Hi! New chapter! Enjoy!_**

* * *

Laxus gritted his teeth as they ran, he really didn't want to keep the kids out here much longer, plus Wendy's condition was seriously deteriorating.

 _I've gotta get her to the castle, fast. I can teleport, but then I'd leave these kids out here...argh, I've got no other choice, if we don't hurry, Wendy might not make it!  
_ Laxus suddenly stopped their mad dash and the others skidded to a halt a few feet after him.

"What's wrong?" Jack demanded.

"I've got to teleport. I'll take Wendy, give her to the nearest person I can find, and come back for you. Got it? I'll take the shrimps too."

Laxus crouched and seized the girls, holding them in one arm while his other arm cradled Wendy. He absolutely dwarfed his smaller guild mates, and the visiting cowgirl .

"You three keep running for the castle, I'll come back and get you as soon as I can." Laxus ordered.

Jack nodded, putting up the strong front she'd constructed over the course of the day.

Rain still pouring down, Laxus vanished in a flash of lightning into the stormy skies.

* * *

At the Draconem Heart castle.

* * *

Natsu gripped the edge of the castle ramparts, grinding his teeth as he watched the dragons warring with each other.

Their once storybook beautiful grassy hill had been torn up in great trenches and riddled with holes that attacks are ripped into the earth. The waters of Heart Lake were frothing in the heavy downpour. Everyone out on the turrets was drenched, yet they refused to go inside and watch through the windows. They remained glued to the spot at the mammoth creatures crashed back and forth.

Shadowlogia slashed upwards with her claws, ripping three great wounds across the golden dragon.  
"Master Dracoya! We've got to help her!" Natsu snapped and made to fling himself from the rampart.

"No!"

"Idiot!"

Sting seized him by the arm, Gajeel grabbing his other arm.

Holding him back, they ignored Natsu screaming in protest. They dragged him bit by bit a safe distance from the edge of the castle wall.

"Natsu-san, listen! Please, stop! We'll only get in her way!"

Sting begged, clutching the fire dragonslayer tightly by the arm, trying to quell his thrashing as he struggled to break free from his guild mates grip.

"I have to help her! She's gonna get _killed_!"

Natsu cried out.

"Shut up!"

Orchid had entered the scene and slapped Natsu hard across the face.

This brash action of the garden dragonslayer had shocked Natsu into stillness.

"Please! Master Dracoya is the most powerful dragonslayer anyone knows! She's stronger then any of us by miles! S-She...she'll be okay..."

Orchid's voice cracked harshly.

Cobra came up behind her and put an awkward hand on her shoulder. He knew all to well Orchid's situation, he'd been in the same one, yet they'd taken to dealing with them very differently. While Cobra had hidden himself inside a facade of power and anger, Orchid had slipped into a timid, closed off shell. Cobra had been able to sneak inside that shell the day the two of them had met atop the eastern tower where all the dragonslayers often met.

Orchid let out a choked sob and flung herself against Cobra's chest as Natsu cursed and pulled his arms free, fisting his hands yet not moving to leap the castle wall again.

Cobra let out a startled gasp as Orchid's approach but gently but his arms around her all the same, one around her back and the other hand against the back of her hand.  
"She'll be ok." He said firmly.

They all looked out to the battlefield again, and were met with a welcome sight.

Dracoya's dragon had lifted Shadowlogia into the air and slammed it hard into the ground.

The massive black dragon lay still.

One by one, the people across the turrets broke into cheer, Natsu's face slowly split into a disbelieving smile as the golden dragon turned and flew back towards the turrets where everyone waited.

The dragon shrank and changed, and soon Master Dracoya, her regal red gown torn across the stomach, exposing her golden guild mark, landed. One sleeve had been ripped off and there was a huge tear in the skirt of the dress.

The instant her feet touched the castle stones she stumbled forward.

"Master!" Onyx threw himself forward onto his knees in order to catch her before she hit the ground.

"That...wasn't...easy..." Master Dracoya panted, her pale green hair had come free of it's messy bun and was waving into a shape that was reminiscent of a burning flame.

"You did it, Master. You saved us." Onyx whispered.

Master Dracoya smiled faintly.

"Well...that's what I'd set out to do...after all." She murmured.

A bolt of lightning touched down on the edge of the ramparts all of the sudden.  
"Cheila!" Laxus barked.

Everyone gasped when they saw the bloodied form cradled in his arms.

"Wendy!" Cheila wailed as she sprinted forward.

"Can you help her?" Laxus asked as KiKi and Kayden ran forward, taking Kylie and Asuka from Laxus's shoulders and carrying the exhausted little girls back into the crowd of wizards.

Cheila nodded stiffly.

"I can try." She said finally as she laid Wendy down on the hard stone ground.

Laxus turned back towards the forest.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Misty demanded, running up to him.

"I've got to go back for Romeo, Cole, and Jack." He said simply before vanishing in a crack of lightning.

As Cheila's magic began to glow and melt into Wendy's beaten up frame, there was heard a rustling out on the hillside.

"...no." Onyx was standing at the edge of the turret, watching as the horrible dragon rose again.

"Oh, come on!" Gray yelled, gripping the top of the turret in fury before turning.

"Lyon! Help me!"

"Alright!" Lyon ran up and the two went into Maker Stance together.

"We'll keep it away from the castle! You guys had better come up with something!" Gray ordered as he and Lyon formed an ice platform, shooting off towards the nightmarish creature.

"Ice..."

"Make..."

"SNOW SERPENT!"

With Gray's hardened weapons ice and Lyon's living ability ice, the serpentine creation was able to deal several punishing blows.

It latched it's fangs into the wings of the dragon, managing to puncture the membrane.

Shadowlogia screeching in protest, throwing back it's head and snapping its wings furiously, the ice snake shattered into millions of glittering frozen pieces.

"Crap!"

Lyon went skating across the ice platforms he and Gray were using to circle the raging dragon.

"What now?" Gray called across to him.

"I don't GRAY LOOK OUT!"

Lyon shot across the ice slide and tackled Gray, narrowly avoiding Shadowlogia's massive claws.

Screaming, the two ice mages fell into a mad tumble, hurtling towards the forest floor.

They were caught by Shadowlogia's large talons.

"Ice make..."

Gray and Lyon began, but it was too late for them, they were sent flying into the air, and falling straight back down into the gaping maw of the salivating dragon.

"GRAY-SAMA!" Juvia wailed as Shadowlogia swallowed the two ice mages whole.

"Gray!"

"Lyon!"

Cries from members of Fairy Tail and Lamia Scale were heartbreaking, and it was all that could be done to restrain the enraged and mourning wizards for going after the dragons blood.

Natsu gritted his teeth, remembering the earnest look on Gray's face when the two had dangled from the spikes on Shadowlogia's back no more then an hour beforehand.

"DRAGONSLAYERS! WITH ME!"

Natsu wasn't to be restrained this time, it wasn't like anyone was trying to stop any of them either. Sting and Gajeel were right behind Natsu.

Fire and iron and light rained down an intense blast against the dragon.

Misty and Onyx leapt the castle ramparts and rolled across the grass, Onyx lifting great pillars of solid stone and hurling hunks of diamond. Misty gathering the rain pouring down all around them and funneling it into a powerful blast at the dragon.

It roared and fell to one knee.

Cobra yelled spell's, showered it with shaped scales of exploding poison, Orchid waved her arms, crying out spell calls, vines tore from the earth beneath it's clawed feet and bound it's ankles to the forest floor.

A great serpent of shadows hissed as it shot forward, Rogue performing a deadly dance to manipulate it from the ground below.

Sting backed up to his partner, and raised it arms to the heavens.

The clouds were swirled until a single patch of bright blue sky let the sun filter through, and the powerful angel creation of the light dragonslayer flew down, wielding it's godly sword.

As the dragonslayers struggled with the nightmare dragon, the other wizards remained frozen in awe on the castle wall.

"Their incredible." Erza whispered, unaware that Jellal was standing directly next to her.

"Indeed." The blue haired heavenly body wizard agreed.

A bolt of lightning struck down on the castle wall and Laxus was there, he dropped his armful of young teenagers and launching into the fight at once.

"Laxus's is here!" Orchid announced as the lightning bolt that commanded attention shot above her and slammed into the dead center of the dragons chest. Incredible spells were flung, claws and roars of nightmare energy were narrowly dodged, and the dragonslayers were giving their all. The furious battle creeped onward, gaining on ten minutes locked in fierce combat.

Natsu let out a shout as his sandaled foot slipped on the rain soaked green grass, and he stumbled onto his back.

Shadowlogia took a deep breath, it's shadowy roar forming in it's mouth.

Natsu crossed his arms over his face and crushed his eyes closed.

The blast was released and struck with such enormous power that the very ground was vaporized several feet deep.

"Natsu!" Gajeel yelled as he flung himself to the side as Shadowlogia snapped her head to the side sent a blast his way.

Gajeel dodged just in time to see clearly past the place where he'd last seen the salmon haired slayer.

He say Natsu staring at the place where he'd been sitting mere moments ago, one arm raised up since his wrist was in a tight grip.

The hand gripping him, the one that had pulled him out of the way, was none other then Wendy Marvell.

Laxus landed next to her in an instant.

"What are you doing!?" He yelled.

Wendy smiled weakly, obviously still feeling the side effects of her life ending wound, and the spell that had restarted her heart.

"I'm ok. Cheila exhausted herself to bring me to as close to 100% as she could."

"Which means your NOT at 100%, so go back to the castle." Laxus ordered as Natsu scrambled to his feet.

"Thanks, Wendy." He said, face firm as he turned and shot back up at the dragon.

Wendy shook her head.  
"No! I won't! I'm a dragonslayer too, Laxus!" She cried.

"Dragonslayer or not, your thirteen! I refuse to let you stay here, go back!"

Laxus demanded, pointing.  
"No!" Wendy cried out again as she turned and charged the dragon, totally ignoring Laxus.

"Wendy!" Laxus barked, groaning before turning and glaring back up at the dragon.

He shot off of the ground again, and swore that if the dragon hurt or, god forbid, killed again, he would tear it apart with his bare hands.

* * *

 ** _Yay! Wendy's somewhat ok! Now she's gonna go fight a giant dragon and possibly get eaten. Gray and Lyon have also been eaten. Believe it or not this story is actually nearing it's conclusion. It certainly won't be as long as the first Draconem Heart, no way. So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks._**


	30. True colors

**_*Bangs head on desk* How do I do these things? The most important chapter and I accidentally didn't post it? Really? Argh! So, here's the chapter that was SUPPOSED to be up weeks ago, I hope you enjoy!_**

* * *

As the dragonslayers waged war against Shadowlogia, struggling as, step by hard earned step, they drove her farther and farther away from their precious castle, Cheila was resting near the far end of the castle rampart.

"You did to much." Jack said worriedly as Cheila leaned against the wall with her back to the chaos, sitting on the cold stones that made up the walls. Rain still came pouring down, but by now Jack was all to used to the steady pounding of raindrops on her back.

Cheila looked over to Cole. He was standing slightly away from everyone else, taking uneven breaths and gripping one of his arms. Other then the minor scratches, and the single painfully large bruise on his chest from being slammed into a tree, he was mostly unharmed from the run through the woods.

"Who's that?" Cheila asked, she'd briefly met Cole when he'd come to Lamia Scale, but Cole had quickly escaped the group after their arrival.

"That's Cole Wingheart. He's a transfer mage, but Shadowlogia's nightmare energy has been overpowering his abilities. He normally absorbs through contact. If he means to or not, he would still risk taking someones energy and abilities and leaving them drained every time he touched someone. But ever since Shadowlogia showed up, he's been trapped in a state of absorbing nightmare power, and he's been able to touch everyone without issue. He hasn't said, but I can tell he's in pain."

Cheila looked up at Cole again, he was now staring out at the dragonslayers, and Jack saw the dawn of something on his face.

"Cole!" Jack caught his attention and gestured for him to join them.

He did just this, and quickly said.  
"I have an idea."

"Should I be concerned?" Jack asked worriedly.

"No. Well, that depends on if you value my life or not."  
"Of course I value your life! What are you going to do?"

Cole fixed Jack with a serious look.

"When I absorb power, I add some of my own magic to it, making it stronger."

"Yeah?" Jack urged him to continue.

Cole looked out at the dragonslayers.  
"I can end this." He said, before running to the edge of the castle and jumping.

"Cole!" Jack cried out, Cheila forced her way to her feet and leaned heavily on the wall, the two girls watched as Cole used a blast of nightmare power from a transfer magic circle to push off of the castle wall and over the electric moat.

He sprinted out towards the dragon, a steely look in his onyx black eyes.

 _They all took me in when no one else would. I've got to find a way to save our guild. If Shadowlogia breaks through the runes, she'll demolish the castle. She'll demolish our home!_

Thoughts ran wild through the boys mind as he skidded to a halt, his boots caked with mud.

He looked up in pure awe at the sheer enormity of this creature that was threatening them. The dragonslayers were being pushed back towards the castle again, and they were running out of energy.

Cole took a deep breath, his mind was set.  
"Guys! Roar at me!"

"What?" Onyx asked, wondering if all the nightmare magic had finally made Cole crack.

"Trust me! Please! I can end this, I know how!"

"If the kid wants us to blast him, we should blast him!" Sting voted.

"Cole, are you sure about this?" Wendy asked as she came bouncing backwards from her last attempt at piercing Shadowlogia's hide.

"Yes! Yes, I'm sure!" Cole shouted.

"Cole, what are you going to do?" Natsu asked as he came running back, all the other dragonslayers were now forming a circle around Cole, looking at him with varying degrees of skepticism.

The only thing holding Shadowlogia back from crushing them all were the vines that Orchid had used to bind her ankles to the ground.

Yet one by one, the bright green leafy vines were snapping.

Cole fixed Natsu with a look that Natsu didn't expect from the unconfident youth. He looked furious, and determined to accomplish his goal.

"I'm going to kill that thing. I'm going to make sure it never comes back."

One by one, the dragonslayers looked to each other, nods were passed back and forth hesitantly.

"Where do you want us?" Onyx finally asked.

Cole sighed, relieved they trusted him enough to go along with his plan.

Soon enough, the dragonslayers had spread out into a half circle. Cole facing the dragon.

"Now!" Cole exclaimed, before Shadowlogia could break free, and before he could get the chance to back out.

"Fire dragon..."

"Lightning dragon..."  
"Sky dragon..."  
"Iron dragon..."  
"Garden dragon..."  
"Poison dragon..."  
"Rock dragon..."  
"Water dragon..."  
"Light dragon..."  
"Shadow dragon..."

Cole fisted his hands and let out a breath, for a moment, all energy seeped out of his system.

For the first time in his life, his natural hair color was revealed, the color of his clothes were the color they had been dyed.

He looked up at the dragon with wide violet eyes, black hair streaked white covered one of his eyes, and his mellow brown poncho billowed around him. His Draconem Heart guild mark outlined on his shoulder in white.

A smile found it's way onto the boys face, he finally knew what his true colors were.

"ROAR!"

The attacks struck all at once, and Cole screamed out, clashing colors from so many different forms of magic waring inside him as his system struggled to process what was happening.

Cole's throat felt raw as he screamed, his body felt as though it had been lit aflame, as though he'd been struck by lightning. Poison raced through his system and he could suddenly feel the vibrations in the rock and the movement of the water falling from above. The wind swirled around him in the hair, shadows collected around his feet. Throughout the absorption of so many magics when he was already exhausted as it was, Cole had managed to remain standing. Light shone from his form and fire collected along with the winds.

Cole threw both of his arms forward, palms outward, and a fifteen foot circumference magic circle tie dyed all the colors of the magic inside him, along with the dark teal that represented his own magic, formed and began spinning in front of him.

Out of this blasted a cannon of all of the dragonslayers power multiplied times over inside the relatively small form of Cole Wingheart.

The cannon was like a blurred blast of flame filled with all the colors of the dragonslayers and the transfer mage. It struck with such powerful impact that a hole was scorched clean through the nightmare dragons chest.

It's death scream filled the air, the smell of it burning choked the mages as the dragon fell backwards, disintegrating as it fell and roaring out it's anguish all the way.

The dragon struck the ground, and a pile of sparkling black dust was all that remained of the feared creature known as Shadowlogia.

* * *

 ** _...well, I'll bet thats not what you were expecting. Please favorite, please follow, please review._**


	31. Crumbling to dust

**_Please enjoy the next chapter!_**

* * *

Everyone stared in shock and amazement at the five foot tall heap of sparkling black dust that was all that remained of the feared nightmare dragon Shadowlogia.

Cole stood in the semicircle of dragonslayers, shock coming onto his face as the clashing colors drained away.

Black hair streaked white, weary violet eyes, mellow brown clothes and boots, brown headband with two brightly dyed red and blue feathers. White guild mark exposed.

Cole Wingheart collapsed forwards, face planting onto the ground, head turned to one side, his eyes closed, his fists relaxed, and before the dragonslayers could reach him, a certain red head that had run onto the field arrived.

"Cole!" Jack cried out, dropping at his side.

She'd knelt at the side of to many fallen friends that day.  
"Cole? Cole can you hear me? Please wake up!" Jack begged as the dragonslayers all maintained their distance.

Several long seconds passed in silence before an exhausted voice was heard.

"I'm...alive." Cole managed.

Tears came welling into the red heads eyes, and without thinking, she bent right over and kissed him.

"Love!" Cheila cheered from the side.

Jack broke away from him and Cole full on stared at her.

"Don't do that again." She ordered him.  
"You mean kiss you or kill a dragon?" Cole asked, keeping a straight face.

Jack rolled her eyes, leaving the question unanswered.

As the armored rose mage helped her friends, perhaps more then a friend, to his feet, Natsu had wandered over to the glittering pile of black dust.

He stared at it forlornly, thinking of Gray's final words to him.

 _Who knows...maybe it's time to end this grudge? He's gotten beaten to the ground for it. He died protecting my guild._

Natsu let out a silent breath, and that was when he saw a slight shifting under the dust.  
"Natsu?" Misty asked, turning to look at the pink haired slayer, who was watching the black dust intensely.

It shifted yet again, and Natsu pounced, seizing a fistful of some soft fiber that was moving under the dust and dragging it out.

He'd wound up seizing a fistful of white hair.  
"Ow! Ow! Ow!"

Lyon yelped as Natsu dragged him from the dust pile.

His shirt was missing and his pale skin was smeared with blackened dust, but he was alive all the same.

"Lyon! Guys! It's Lyon!"

"What!?"

Cheila came racing over, running as fast as her legs would carry her.

As Natsu dove into the dust again, the pink haired girl threw herself into Lyon's chest.  
Lyon, who had just managed to get to his feet, stumbled back a few steps in order to receive the weight of the sobbing girl.  
"I thought you died!"

"Sorry to worry you." Lyon replied soothingly, patted the girl on the back

Natsu, meanwhile, had found something else in the black sand, and had latched onto it, pulling out Bacchus by the wrist.  
"So not wild." He croaked as Natsu helped him to his feet and sent him limping forward, where he was promptly seized by Cana and some of his guild mates.

Natsu continued digging as more and more mages appeared all around him.

Finally, he felt his hand latch around some sort of cloth, and yanked hard.

He pulled out Gray's white shirt.

"God, stripper!" Natsu groaned, tossing the shirt over his shoulder and digging in deeper, finally finding something else more solid.

He pulled.

Out came Gray, the moment his face was exposed to air he started coughing and gasping.

Natsu helped the Fairy Tail wizard stand, and Gray stared at him for a long moment.

"You beat the dragon?" Gray tried.  
"Nah."

Natsu pointed to Cole, who'd been surrounded by Romeo, Wendy, Jack, Kylie and Asuka.

"Cole was the one who really pulled it off, I just helped out. Now..."  
Natsu looked down at the sparkling onyx dust.  
"That nightmare is over."

Gray nodded.

Natsu let out a breath.

"So..."

"What?"

Natsu gave Gray an appraising look.

"You sticking around? I'm sure we'll be throwing a party."

Gray stared at him in disbelief. Natsu wanted him to stay?

Natsu rolled his eyes, "Course ya don't have to. Now c'mon. We've got a lot of cleaning up to do."

Gray nodded, "Right."

So they turned their backs on the remains of the dragon of nightmares, and made their way back to the castle, just as the first rays of sunshine started to peak through the clouds, just as the downpour started to lessen, and just as more smiles started to appear, and more laughter was to be heard.

* * *

 ** _Ha, ha, Gray, your still not off for what you did but your getting closer. Only took you over a year and a half. Well, please favorite, please follow, please review!_**


	32. Choice

**_Yeah, pretty sure I'm about to blindside every single one of you, let me know if I actually did. Hope you enjoy!_**

* * *

Orchid sighed, contented with how the hill had been repaired. With the help of Onyx and Jura, they'd filled in all of the holes in the hillside and she'd used her magic to regrow over the bare patches. The secret safe room had been repaired, and the protective dome spell over the castle had been recast.

All in all, the castle was looking just the way it had been, except for the arch that Gajeel had built, which had been stepped on by Shadowlogia.

Gajeel was building a new one now, and he wasn't very happy about it either.

After allowing her gaze to look over the hill one last time, Orchid turned and went back to the castle.

It had been two days since the attack and eventual defeat of Shadowlogia, a few of the guilds had left, but Lamia Scale, Blue Pegasus, and Fairy Tail had accepted the invite to stay for a few days, though they all planned to leave that afternoon.

Smiling, Orchid made her way over the drawbridge, and came across a sight she wasn't expecting.

Natsu and Gray were together, granted, they were on separated by Lucy and Happy, but all the same, they were walking together and tolerating each other. That alone was something to be shocked about.

Edging carefully past so not to intrude upon the moment, the green haired girl walked on her way towards the dragonslayers tower. Wendy had suggested they call it the Dragon's Nest, and she had to admit the name had a nice ring to it.

* * *

In Master Dracoya's office.

* * *

Master Dracoya glanced up from her repair bills at the knock on the door.

"Come in."

The door opened and she saw her unexpected visitor.  
"Oh, Romeo, come on in." She offered, gesturing for him to enter the room.

The flare mage walked in and shut the door behind him.  
"I was wondering if I could talk to you?" Romeo asked, looking up to the powerful dragonslayer.

Master Dracoya nodded.  
"Of course you can, take a seat."

Romeo accepted the offer and sat down, taking a breath.

"I was researching my magic in your libraries, sorry." He quickly apologized.  
"No need for you to be, your a guest in our castle, as such you can use any of our resources you wish." Master Dracoya set her quill in her inkwell and folded her hands on her desk.

"Did you find anything interesting?" She pressed forward.

Romeo looked off into the corner of the room.  
"My suspicions were confirmed. I am a lost mage. Flare mages are rarer then I thought. Especially flare mages that can use more then one fire."

Master Dracoya nodded, and Romeo proceeded to describe to her what had happened in the forests, how he'd brought Wendy back from the dead.

"So, Wendy died. This you are sure of?" Master Dracoya was remarkably level voiced about this, though her eyes did show some of her surprise.  
Romeo nodded, "She stopped breathing, her hand got cold, then I snapped. I'm scared of what would happen if I snapped again. I flung Jack across the field and didn't even realize it. What if I got so angry I actually attacked someone? I could..."

Romeo trailed off, but it was obvious what he was concerned about.

Master Dracoya nodded in understanding.

"I can't really say anything on the subject. Your abilities are staring to come out as you age, and the older you get, the harder, I suspect, it would be for you to detain your abilities, especially if you were under the influence of extreme emotional stress." Master Dracoya rested her chin on her propped up hand as she considered it.

"So, why exactly did you come up here? Did you just want my opinion of this topic?"

Romeo closed his eyes, letting out a deep breath.

"I...was thinking about leaving Fairy Tail and moving here, if you'd have me."

Master Dracoya's eyes went wide and concern instantly wrote across her features.  
"But Wendy told me you grew up at Fairy Tail, that your Father was even active Master for a while?"

Romeo nodded, "That's true, Dad's still a member and probably will be for the rest of his life." He said, for some reason his voice sounded somber.

"I love Fairy Tail, but after Natsu-nii and the others left, it just wasn't the same. I'm also afraid of what my magic is doing, and I know that if I came here I'd be able to learn how to control it. Right?" Romeo added on the last word weakly, gripping the edges of his chair with a heavily concerned look on his face.

Master Dracoya nodded, "If you were to make the decision to come to Draconem Heart, you would be welcomed with open arms. I would do everything in my power to help you understand and adjust to the changes in your magic as well, but it is your decision to make."

Romeo stared off at some distant point for a few seconds, Master Dracoya could practically see the war going on across his face.

A little while later, Romeo walked out of Master Dracoya's office, praying he'd made the right choice.

* * *

Later that day, in the late afternoon.

* * *

Master Dracoya, along with all of her children, were atop the castle rampart, though now, thanks to the ones they were waving off, they weren't looking out at a terrifying dragon.

Lamia Scale turned back and waved one last time before clicking the meteor spheres Master Dracoya had given them and flying off in bursts of gold.

Fairy Tail was on the drawbridge, saying their final goodbyes.

Asuka was looking forward to seeing her parents, and sort of scared of seeing her parents, they would probably be rather cross with her.

Gray and Natsu shared a nod, Erza appeared a little late, looking rather pink in the face, and said hurriedly.

"I was just saying goodbye to Jellal."

Lucy, and Levy were poking fun at her, the others were checking their bags, and that was when Cana decided to change the subject.

"So, like, wheres Romeo?"

They all looked around, realizing that the flare mage was no where to be seen.

Wendy, who was on the bridge to say goodbye, looked around as well.

"Weird, I don't see him."

That was when Romeo came running out onto the bridge, yet he wasn't carrying any bags.

"Hey, there you are, where's your stuff? We're heading back, kid."

Cana asked.

Romeo swallowed hard.

"I told you guys what happened in the forest right?"

He got affirmative nods from all of the Fairy Tailers.

"Well, as much as I hate to admit it, I'm scared. Scared of what could happen to me magic. So I decided to stay."

All of the members of Fairy Tail blinked in perfect sync.

Lucy let out an awkward laugh.  
"Kay...thats alright...we understand...for how long?"

Romeo gritting his teeth, feeling tears welling up in his eyes.

 _What kind of baby are you!? Crying now? Your a little late! You made the choice, now you've got to live with it!_

Romeo turned and pointed to his red guild mark.

His red _Draconem Heart_ guild mark.

"I'm sorry." He choked out.

"Romeo!" Lucy exclaimed as Romeo turned and raced back into the castle.

She turned to see that the Draconem Heart members there to see them off looked just as surprised as them.

"Did you know about this!?" Erza demanded.

"No!" All of them yelped in unison.

An awkward few minutes passed before Lucy spoke.  
"It's Romeo's choice. We should respect it. I'm more worried about telling Macao."

Gray nodded, "Right. He's right, if he's having a hard time with his powers, this guild will be able to help him."

Slowly, the Fairy Tailer's turned to leave, making their way down the hill, they came to an empty spot on the path and prepped their meteor spheres.

Before they could blast off, Wendy shouted to them.  
"Be sure to come back and visit sometime!"

Natsu grinned, "Yeah, your welcome anytime!"

Gajeel crossed his arms.  
"Just don't show up with another dragon to kill!"

Laxus nodded, "Other then that, we better see you again soon!"

Erza and Gray looked at each other, gone were icy glares or isolation.

"We will!" Lucy called back to them.  
"We'll come back the next chance we get!" Levy agreed.

"Goodbye!"

"Goodbye!"

They all sent magic into their meteor spheres, and they were gone.

* * *

 ** _Romeo's a member of Draconem Heart!_**

 ** _"Rowen! Rowen! Rowen!"_**

 ** _"Calm down, you crazy shippers!"_**

 ** _Well, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks!_**


	33. An old day, a new future

**_Next chapter, please enjoy!_**

* * *

"WHAT!?" Macao screamed as Erza broke the news to him.

Erza had been elected because it was more likely Macao would accept the news from her then anyone else.

"Romeo had several close calls with his powers while we were battling Shadowlogia, and he made the decision _on his own_ to remain at Draconem Heart."

Macao looked like he was about to pop a vein in his forehead.  
"Well? How long is he staying there!?"

Erza let out a sigh.  
"He made the decision to permanently join."

"WHAT!?" Erza winced at the second yell.  
"How dare he make that sort of decision without consulting me, where is this castle I'm going to go find that boy and drag him home by his ear!"

"No you aren't."

Macao squeaked when Erza equipped a sword and fixed him with a glare.  
"Your only sons best chance of regaining trust over his magical abilities lies at Draconem Heart. That guild was built on helping lost wizards control their powers. That you would even consider pulling Romeo away from that chance when he needs it the most it unbelievable. Furthermore, you would not be able to enter Draconem Heart castle, even if you could ever find it. Now, I've told you what transpired while we were gone, I'm leaving."

Erza ex-quipped her sword and walked away.

"I need some cake."

* * *

At Draconem Heart castle.

* * *

Romeo stared out at the setting sun on his first night at Draconem Heart as a member. He had his own room in the dorms, and was slowly integrating himself with the other members.

 _I'm a member of Draconem Heart...famous lost guild hidden away in a place no one knows. But I know, because I'm a member. I'm going to live here for maybe the rest of my life. This feeling is a lot bigger then I thought it would be..._

Romeo turned when he heard the hatch to the top of the tower he was on opening.

A blue head poked up, followed by violent orange, and mellow green.  
"Hey guys." Romeo greeting as Wendy, Jack, and Cole clambered up the ladder to join him.

"Hey, what happened to your hair?"

Cole shrugged and fiddled with a strand of his green locks.  
"I found out my actual natural hair color is black and white, and my natural eye color is violet, but after Jack, y'know..."

Cole blushed and Jack glared at him.

"Shut up. He tuned to my magic and ever since he's gone back to being a Chameleon, as usual."

Cole didn't seem to take as much offense to that nickname as he used too.

"So." Wendy walked up and leaned on the wall next to Romeo, Jack and Cole doing the same to Romeo's opposite side.  
"Your our guild mate now?"

Romeo nodded.

"I've always thought I would spend my entire life as a member of Fairy Tail, but out of no where, all of this chaos erupted. I wasn't sure where I'd go. Now, here I am, looks like I'll be sticking around for a while too."

"Hey, I just had a brilliant idea!" Jacqueline exclaimed.

All eyes turned to her.

"What's up?" Romeo asked.

Jack grinned.  
"We should form our own team!"

Wendy gasped and jumped up and down once.  
"That would be great! We could all go on missions together, and as we get older we can take better and better mission!" Wendy cried out in joy.

"Sounds good to me." Cole agreed, nodding.

Romeo smiled faintly.

"If you'll have me."

"Obviously! After all that happened to us in the forest, we're gonna be, like, the new generation of Draconem Heart!" Jack cried out.

"What do we name ourselves though?" Cole asked.

Jack put a finger to her chin.

"Um..."

"Not like our magic has much in common." Romeo pointed out.

"True." Jack crossed his arms and pouted, thinking.

"Well, what brought us together?" Jack asked.  
"Uh, getting attacked by baby dragons and Cole having a panic attack?" Romeo deadpanned, leaning back against the wall of the tower.

"Team Dragonspawn?" Wendy suggested.

Cole nodded, "I like that one. Though it is kinda ironic considering it was the dragon spawn that nearly killed all of us."

Jack laughed, "Aw, come on, with that stunt you pulled you ought to start calling yourself a dragonslayer!"

Cole rolled his eyes.  
"Sure. 'Hello, I'm the Transfer Dragonslayer. Yes, I can totally kill a dragon for you, I just need five or more other dragonslayers to fuel me up and at the same time try not to die!'"

Cole said in a sarcastic voice.

Romeo laughed at his tone and Wendy smiled brightly.  
"I know you left a lot behind, but I'm real glad your here, Romeo." She said finally.

Romeo turned and looked out at the setting sun again, watching it sink lower into the trees of the West Woodsy, his new home.

"So am I."

The sun set on an old day, but tomorrow, it would rise on a new one, and shine down on the guild that had weathered yet another dangerous threat, and come out victorious.

There would always be a new day at Draconem Heart.

* * *

 ** _And the second installment of the Draconem Heart series is completed! I hope you all enjoyed it, maybe I'll do a sequel, I'm still not sure. I mean, I probably will, but now that this is complete I think I'm going to zone in on some of my old incomplete mostly abandon stories and try to maybe finish them up. Chrysalis Academy is first on my to do list, so please review and let me know what you thought of this story as a whole! Thanks for reading!_**


End file.
